MCI to buy managed security service provider

MCI announced Thursday its plans to acquire NetSec, a managed security service provider, for $105 million.

“We want to make MCI’s brand synonymous with security,” says Jonathan Crane, executive vice president and chief strategy officer at the carrier. He says the acquisition is part of the company’s overall strategy to aggressively roll out new services, partner with security companies when needed and go the extra step and acquire companies like NetSec to build up MCI’s expertise and fill in its security offerings.

NetSec provides managed and professional security services to the federal government and enterprise business users around the world. The company offers services in 32 countries in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia.

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MCI announced Thursday its plans to acquire NetSec, a managed security service provider, for $105 million.

“We want to make MCI’s brand synonymous with security,” says Jonathan Crane, executive vice president and chief strategy officer at the carrier. He says the acquisition is part of the company’s overall strategy to aggressively roll out new services, partner with security companies when needed and go the extra step and acquire companies like NetSec to build up MCI’s expertise and fill in its security offerings.

NetSec provides managed and professional security services to the federal government and enterprise business users around the world. The company offers services in 32 countries in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia.

Crane says NetSec is bringing risk and vulnerability-assessment professional services to MCI, which the carrier did not offer before. “These will be whole new revenue streams,” he says.

MCI also plans to layer NetSec’s event correlation and incident management on top of its current managed security services, such as its Managed Firewall and Intrusion Detection, Managed PKI, anti-virus and anti-denial-of-service offerings. 

Crane also points to NetSec’s overall security expertise as benefit in the acquisition.

MCI says it expects to close the deal within 30 days.