Telstra has entered into a deal to acquire New Zealand-based cybersecurity analytics firm Cognevo from Wynyard Group, which entered administration on 28 October.
Wynyard's failure came after "exhausting its options to secure its working capital needs", according to administrators Grant Graham and Neale Jackson from KordaMentha.
A Telstra spokesperson said that the telco was acquiring Cogenvo to enhance the capabilities of its managed security services business.
Cognevo launched last year under the name Advanced Cyber Threat Analytics (ACTA), signing up Telstra as its foundation customer in a three-year deal worth NZ$3.2 million.
The company's threat detection solution was deployed across Telstra's internal ICT network to prevent cybercrime by identifying anomalies and unusual patterns within its network.
Telstra's former chief information security officer Mike Burgess said at the time that ACTA would provide the telco with "a powerful intelligence and analytics platform that will allow us to quickly identify and explore key cyber threats and to contain those first seen cyber issues before they become a serious breach".
“A data analytics capability that identifies true ‘unknown-unknowns’ should be a fundamental part of any organisation’s cyber defence. Wynyard’s ACTA software has an ability to identify true mathematical anomalies, rather than relying on known understanding of what is bad,” he said.
Cognevo changed its name from ACTA in September 2016.
The acquisition is still subject to a number of conditions, but is expected to be completed within 10 days.
Cognevo is the latest in a string of high-profile acquisitions by Telstra in 2016, which includes Microsoft partner Kloud, application developer Readify and enterprise mobility management provider MSC Mobility.
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