LevelBlue Acquires Trustwave to Become Leading Independent MSSP with Enhanced AI and Cybersecurity Capabilities

LevelBlue to acquire Trustwave in push to expand managed cybersecurity capabilities - SiliconANGLE

LevelBlue to acquire Trustwave in push to expand managed cybersecurity capabilities Managed cybersecurity company LevelBlue Inc. today announced that it has signed a deal to acquire managed detection and response company Trustwave Holdings Inc. for an undisclosed price. The deal involves LevelBlue, the company formerly known as AT&T Cybersecurity, acquiring Trustwave from MC² Security Fund, an affiliate of investment firm The Chertoff Group LLC. The MC² Security Fund had acquired Trustwave from Singapore telecommunications giant Singtel Holdings Ltd. in January 2024 and SingTel had owned Trustwave after acquiring it for $810 million in 2015. Founded in 1995, Trustwave offers a suite of cybersecurity services, including managed detection and response, managed security services, cyber advisory, penetration testing, database security and email security. The company also has a team of researchers under the SpiderLabs brand undertaking threat research and intelligence. The acquisition will see LevelBlue merge its extensive expertise in strategic risk management and cybersecurity infrastructure with Trustwave's Fusion Platform, a cloud-native MDR service that provides 24/7 cybersecurity protection for organizations worldwide. The merged capabilities will provide enterprises with visibility and control over how security resources are provisioned, monitored and managed across any environment, strengthening overall cyber resilience. The companies said the combined portfolios will also establish a strategically unified cybersecurity managed defense platform. It's supported by LevelBlue's artificial intelligence threat detection platform and Trustwave's SpiderLab's threat research and intelligence capabilities that will safeguard critical assets across cloud, hybrid and on-premises environments. Trustwave also brings to the table full authorized status by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program. FedRAMP is a U.S. government program that standardizes the security assessment and authorization of cloud services used by federal agencies. Trustwave's FedRAMP status, along with its StateRAMP authorization, will allow LevelBlue to meet the Department of Defense's stringent "U.S. eyes only" requirement for the Defense Industrial Base and Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification for MDR services across federal, state and local government markets. "The acquisition of Trustwave represents a pivotal moment for LevelBlue and the cybersecurity industry," said LevelBlue Chairman and Chief Executive Robert McCullen. "Trustwave's extensive expertise in managed detection and response services, combined with its unparalleled threat intelligence from SpiderLabs and mission-critical FedRAMP and StateRAMP authorizations, perfectly aligns with our vision to deliver simplified and powerful cybersecurity protection to organizations." The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and as part of the deal, the Chertoff Group is partnering with LevelBlue to provide strategic insight to further accelerate growth across the MDR market segment.

LevelBlue Buys Trustwave To Become The 'Largest Independent MSSP,' CEO Says: Exclusive

'Now with Trustwave, we'll have hundreds of MSSP partners around the world. ... We're really looking to support our partners and provide services for them that they can't get to market quickly enough,' says LevelBlue CEO and former Trustwave CEO Robert McCullen. LevelBlue, formerly telecom giant AT&T's security business, has bought managed detection and response specialist Trustwave in a move that would make the cybersecurity "upstart" one of the largest independent, pure-play managed security service providers in the world, according to LevelBlue CEO Robert McCullen. The deal comes on the heels of LevelBlue's June acquisition of professional services firm Aon's cybersecurity consulting business, formerly known as Stroz Friedberg, for its incident response chops. The two transactions will create a managed security powerhouse and expand LevelBlue's leadership and reputation, especially among government customers, McCullen told CRN in an exclusive interview. "With Aon and Trustwave, we're very excited to bring them all together. We'll be a leading provider of incident response services in the industry, and then with Trustwave, we'll strengthen our MDR platform," he said. "We've been looking for other platforms to expand our geographical presence and then also strengthen our government platform." The longtime tech executive, for his part, was a co-founder and CEO of Trustwave for more than 16 years. [Related: AT&T Cybersecurity Spin-Off LevelBlue La'nches New Program To Transform Partners Into MSSPs: Exclusive] Trustwave, a Chicago-based cybersecurity and managed security services company, offers MDR, managed security services, cyber advisory, penetration testing, database security and email security offerings. The company earlier this year earned full authorized status by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), adding to its existing StateRAMP authorization. The acquisition will bring together LevelBlue's strategic risk management expertise and cybersecurity infrastructure with Trustwave's Fusion platform and cloud-native MDR service. The offering provides 24x7 cybersecurity protection for organizations worldwide, the two companies said. Enterprises will benefit from increased unprecedented visibility and control over how security resources are provisioned, monitored and managed across any environment, according to LevelBlue. The combined portfolios will also establish a unified managed defense platform, supported by LevelBlue's AI threat detection platform, that can work across cloud, hybrid and on-premises environments, the Dallas-based company said. Trustwave's recent FedRAMP authorization was especially appealing to LevelBlue, McCullen said. LevelBlue, which already has government customers thanks to its relationship with telecom mainstay AT&T, will now meet the requirements for the U.S. Department of Defense, for example. "It'll certainly strengthen our capabilities between incident response, which a lot of times leads to MDR opportunities, and then us having FedRAMP [authorization] is unique in the industry, so we're very excited about that. It allows us to get back our security clearances and all those sorts of things that that we wanted to do since we [spun off from AT&T]," he said. LevelBlue largely goes to market through the channel, McCullen said. The MSSP opportunity is growing on a global level, he added. "Now with Trustwave, we'll have hundreds of MSSP partners around the world, and we'll look to strengthen those relationships," he said. "One of the things that we have at scale is we can support any multinational account. I think that's something that we can verticalize, not just through federal government, but also in health care and financial services. We're really looking to support our partners and provide services for them that they can't get to market quickly enough." One-year-old LevelBlue spun out from AT&T in May 2024 after entering into a joint venture with private equity firm WillJam Ventures. Thanks to its backing from one of the largest -- and oldest -- carriers in the country, LevelBlue at its start was one of the largest startups in the cybersecurity industry to date, with tens of thousands of customers coming over from AT&T, the company told CRN. LevelBlue launched with more than 1,000 employees globally. Today, the company has more than 2,500 employees, including the Trustwave team that has joined LevelBlue.