UK company invests in Middle East cyber security firm

Arm Holdings, a UK firm that designs microchips, will expand into Israel after it acquired one of one of the nation’s biggest cyber security companies.

Arm, based in Cambridge, possesses technology that powers 95% of smartphones worldwide. It now plans to protect those who use its technology after acquiring Sansa Security. The sale figure has yet to be disclosed, but is believed to be anywhere between £54m and £64m.

The acquisition will mean that Arm can prepare for what corporate PR director Andy Winstanley described as an evolution into the ‘Internet of Things’, meaning a worldwide relationship between people and objects.

Such a network will make cyber security more important than ever, as hackers would in theory have the ability to control almost any kind of system if they managed to infiltrate the network.

Winstanley believes that the acquisition of Sansa Security was crucial in the scheme of things. He said:

“This is our first engineering presence in the country. It’s positive and hopefully positive for Israel as well. We intend to grow the number of people we have there, as we see it as an exciting location where we can maintain our commercial presence and build a new engineering capability.”

Such worldwide scenarios as the one described by Winstanley are propositions that affect us all, but that does not mean that SMEs have no role in combatting cyber security. Any business that holds information should protect its data as much as possible, and that means ensuring that cyber security jobs are high on the priority list.