location Dortmund/Vienna, Date 2022.09.27

The Materna Group is continuing to pursue its Mission 2025 strategy, strengthening itself in the cyber security sector and has acquired 100 percent of the company RADAR Cyber Security with effect from 23 September 2022. With the purchase of the Vienna-based cyber security specialist, Materna completes its portfolio in the focus area of cyber security and sustainably expands its capacities and delivery capability in this important market segment. Together with RADAR, Materna aims to become one of the leading cyber security providers in the DACH region. RADAR offers the establishment of a Security Operations Centre (SOC) for companies and Managed Security Service Providers (MSSP) on the basis of a cyber security platform and has itself been very successfully providing a SOC as a Service “Made in Europe” for more than ten years. RADAR thus acts as an end-to-end provider for both the equipment of SOCs and the provision of SOC services. Materna will further develop RADAR’s SOC platform and thus complete its own cyber security portfolio. RADAR employs around 110 people and was founded in 2011.

Dr Christian Polster, one of the founders of RADAR, will remain on board and take over the management of the company together with Eugenio Carlon. Eugenio Carlon is currently head of the Cyber Security division at Materna. Dr Christian Polster was previously responsible for the further development of the portfolio as Chief Portfolio Officer. Founder Sebastian Michels will also remain in the company in a responsible position.

“With this acquisition, we are strengthening our ability to deliver in a long-term growth market, completing our portfolio and becoming an end-to-end provider for cyber security services and consulting. At the same time, we are expanding our presence in the DACH region for these offerings. RADAR also fits very well into our strategy of increasingly offering consulting and services with our own software assets, with which we differentiate ourselves. It is also our goal to significantly increase the revenue share of Managed Security Services,” explains Martin Wibbe, CEO of the Materna Group.

“In the area of cyber security, we are already a full-service provider and holistic expert for critical business models and infrastructures with a 360-degree view. By combining both portfolios, we are further expanding our position as an end-to-end provider with regard to the topic of SOC. This allows us to provide our customers with all the services they need to establish a cyber resilience strategy from a single source: Consulting, analysis, solutions and services,” explains Eugenio Carlon from Materna. Materna offers a high-performance security offering in the IT/OT sector to customers who want to tackle their path of further digitalisation and cloudification as part of their IT strategy. In the industrial environment, the target customer segments include discrete manufacturing, process industry, automotive, energy and utilities as well as CRITIS companies.

“We are pleased to be a part of the successful Materna Group and to continue intensively on our path as a SOC technology developer and provider of managed security services. The very homogeneous complementary product portfolio of the two companies is very attractive for the cyber security market and opens up completely new opportunities. Together we will become a leading end-to-end cyber security provider in the DACH region,” says Dr Christian Polster of RADAR.

Materna supports customers in the planning, creation and implementation of holistic cyber security measures: from awareness and consulting to project planning and the secure operation of cyber security solutions in its own Security Operations Centre (SOC). Other topics include vulnerability management, secure digital identities, web security, information security management, secure application development and security awareness.

Rising cyber threats and regulatory requirements

Cyber threats are increasing worldwide and cyber attacks are becoming more and more complex. The need and demand for cyber security solutions and the development of strong cyber resilience on the part of companies and authorities are correspondingly high. In addition, the demand for cyber security experts continues to rise sharply. This situation requires the deployment of a SOC, a cyber security control centre for the rapid detection, analysis and handling of security incidents, across all industries. RADAR accompanies well-known customers in the manufacturing industry, in KRITIS companies such as the financial and energy sectors, in trade and the public sector with its turnkey solutions for cyber security. In addition, managed security service providers or large customers who want to set up their own cyber defence centre can purchase the SOC solution on a licence basis.

Various regulations explicitly require the establishment of a SOC or the use of SOC services. These include the IT Security Act, the minimum logging standards of the BSI (Federal Office for Information Security), the insurance and banking supervisory requirements for IT of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), in short VAIT and BAIT, the UNECE World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations and other IT security requirements of the regulated market. Accordingly, the demand for managed security services (SOC as a service) will also increase disproportionately in Germany.

Serving the interface between service management and SOC

An important lever for the detection of cyber attacks is the integration of a SOC or the incidents detected from it into the service management. “The combination of the cyber security and service management solution offering is a unique selling point of RADAR and Materna. Materna has been one of the leading providers of consulting, solutions and technologies for service management for decades,” says Uwe Scariot, the board member responsible for enterprise service management and Materna’s cross-market services.

The cross-company processing of incidents is becoming increasingly important, especially in the security sector, and is also required by the regulatory authorities. The fast and precisely traceable analysis, reaction and elimination of security incidents between (external) security specialists, company representatives and IT providers is essential for risk reduction. The combination of service management solutions and SOCs brings a central simplification and possibility to establish a central Security Orchestration & Automated Response (SOAR) solution for this area of case management including all necessary KPIs and reports.

RADAR’s Cyber Security Platform

RADAR’s Cyber Security Platform integrates the technology for security detection and response as well as all the components needed to work in a SOC. From Big Data analytics to customised reports in the Risk & Security Cockpit, it enables security analysts and SOC operation managers to detect state-of-the-art cyber threats. RADAR Cyber Security relies on a holistic model of attack detection and assessment based on a proven Advanced Correlation Engine. With its SOC as a Service services, RADAR offers its customers a more than ten-year proven approach to the application of the technology and can quickly introduce and establish a SOC. Complementing this, the company offers training for all areas of a SOC operator.

Materna’s Mission 2025

The acquisition of RADAR is a continuation of the “Mission 2025” growth strategy. The aim of Mission 2025, which was launched in spring 2021, is to increase the Materna Group’s turnover to over 700 million euros by 2025 and to increase the number of employees worldwide to over 5,000. In the course of this, the Materna Group has sharpened its portfolio in the focus areas of cyber security, Journey2Cloud, enterprise service management and public sector, among others, and is consistently aligning it with market requirements. In the course of this year, Materna had already acquired the companies TraffGo Road GmbH, Virtual Solution AG and Trebing + Himstedt Prozeßautomation GmbH & Co. KG.

Picture material

l. t. r.: Eugenio Carlon (Materna), Uwe Scariot (Materna, Member of the Board of Directors Cross Market Services), Dr. Christian Polster (RADAR) at the signing of the contract in Vienna Source: Daniel Auer

l. t. r.: Eugenio Carlon (Materna), Uwe Scariot (Materna, Member of the Board of Directors Cross Market Services), Dr. Christian Polster (RADAR) at the signing of the contract in Vienna Source: Daniel Auer

Martin Wibbe, CEO Materna Group Source: Materna

About Materna

The Materna group implements sustainable IT and digitization projects for customers from corporations, medium-sized businesses and public authorities. With more than 3,200 employees worldwide, Materna generates sales of 433 million euros (2021). Know-how and competencies are bundled along nine focus areas. In the focus areas of Digital Administration, Enterprise Service Management and Passenger Journey, Materna has been a market leader for many years. With the focus areas SAP Transformation, Journey2Cloud™ and Cyber Security, Materna offers solutions for the currently most pressing challenges in almost all industries. In the focus areas of Digital Experience, Sustainability & Resilience and Data Economy, Materna offers solutions that enable customers to position themselves sustainably and generate added value in the long term.