EY acquires Sydney security consultancy Aleron

EY Australia has acquired Sydney-based cybersecurity consultancy Aleron for an undisclosed sum.

As part of the deal, the Big Four firm will acquire Aleron’s eDNA security analytics and risk reporting platform. Aleron founders Mark Wroniak and Alex Morkos will also join EY as partners, bringing with them 36 staff and contractors to the company.

EY claims the deal makes it the largest cybersecurity provider among the Big Four firms, as well as the professional services sector as a whole.

“EY has the largest cybersecurity division of the big four firms with more than 300 dedicated cybersecurity professionals, which demonstrates our commitment to meeting rising client demand for cyber operations,” EY Oceania cybersecurity leader Anthony Robinson said.

“The acquisition of Aleron will build on our growing capability to deliver end-to-end cyber resilience for clients as they embrace new and disruptive technologies such as cloud, robotics and Internet of Things.”

Aleron’s eDNA platform enables companies to view the health of IT systems in real time and help identify where to focus efforts and budget to reduce risk. EY aims to scale eDNA globally in addition to its current security offerings.

“We look forward to working with the team at EY to expand our services and we are excited to be a part of a global rollout of our locally developed eDNA tool,” Aleron founder Mark Wroniak said.

“Our experience as an end-to-end solution provider, coupled with our unique technology offering will enable us to leverage data-driven solutions for clients to address their concerns around cyber risk and translate that into real actions to resolve them.”

Aleron would be the Big Four firm’s latest in a series of tech acquisitions in the past 12 months, including SAP partner Plaut, digital consultancy Adelphi, and economic modelling automation developer Cadence.

EY earlier this year also launched a custom-built cyber security centre in Melbourne, a facility specialising “intelligent automated services” like a triage incident response service, threat protection and virtual hunting capabilities.