BT Taps McAfee, Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet as Key Security Partners

BT Security has announced key partners that it will work with going forward to provide industry-leading managed security services to customers.

The decision follows BT’s largest-ever appraisal of its security suppliers, and a comprehensive review of the security vendor ecosystem as a whole.

The decision to refine our security partner base was driven by the recognition that many of our customers find it difficult to navigate today’s complex security landscape. The huge range of suppliers and products in the market can be bewildering, and lead to the adoption of multiple overlapping systems. This in turn can render security estates difficult to manage, burdened with unnecessary costs and, ultimately, with lower overall levels of protection.

BT Security is reflecting its customers’ desire to reduce complexity by having a leaner set of partners and clearly laying out its view of the best providers for specific security requirements. The confirmed partners were agreed following a detailed evaluation of their respective capabilities across all security control and threat management technologies.

The final selection provides BT’s view of the security market’s leading providers, who will support a harmonised portfolio of solutions to its customers going forward.

Kevin Brown, Managing Director of BT Security, said: “Our new security partner ecosystem showcases the benefits of BT Security as a Managed Security Services Provider. We’re able to use our deep experience and insight of the security ecosystem to help our customers navigate what can be an incredibly confusing market. We’re also ensuring that BT Security customers will benefit from working with the best suppliers from across the security industry.”

McAfee, Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet were selected as BT Security’s ‘Critical Partners’. Each of those companies will provide a range of services and products that will be incorporated into BT Security’s global portfolio, as well as providing holistic support to its commercial and operational activities. BT Security will also work with these partners to develop a roadmap of security solutions which continue to reflect evolving customer demands and integrate the latest developments in security automation.

Lynn Doherty, Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing at McAfee, said: “We’re proud to partner with BT to fight against cybercrime and accelerate new business environments for our customers as they look for more solution integrations, deeper engagement and faster modernization efforts. Together through our strategic service provider partners, like BT, McAfee is able to deliver world class security services that enable organizations to evolve their defenses into areas like Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and Extended Detection and Response (XDR).”

Alex Zinin, VP, Global Service Provider Business at Palo Alto Networks, said: “We’ve been working closely with BT Security for several years to bring innovative cybersecurity solutions to our joint customers. We are honoured to be selected as one of their critical partners to continue this close collaboration, in recognition of the breadth of our security capabilities across multiple market segments. This comes at a time when it’s never been more essential for communications and security to be closely aligned to help all organisations with staff working remotely. We look forward to working together as we strive to make each day safer and more secure than the one before.”

John Maddison, Executive Vice President of Products and Chief Marketing Officer at Fortinet, said: “Digital Innovation is disrupting all industries, markets, and segments, leading to increased risk as cyber threats take advantage of this disruption. To protect against known advanced threats as well as unknown sophisticated attacks, Fortinet enables organizations to apply security anywhere and protect all edges – including WAN, cloud, data center, endpoint, identity, and home – while reducing the number of required products to save costs and remove complexity. We’re proud to partner with BT Security to help customers address the most critical security challenges and protect data across the entire digital infrastructure.”

Microsoft, IBM and Cisco were all confirmed as ‘Strategic Partners’ for BT Security. This categorisation reflects not only their relationship with BT Security, but also their broader activities and remit across the whole of BT. BT Security also confirmed a further nine ‘Ecosystem Partners’, who will be incorporated into its global portfolio of solutions for customers due to their complementary technology capabilities. These partners are Skybox, Forescout, Zscaler, Check Point, CrowdStrike, Okta, Qualys, Netscout and F5.

Through deeper strategic relationships, BT Security and its partners will work together to provide better customer experience and protection, while those selected partners will also be BT Security’s main collaborators as they look to develop future customer solutions. BT Security will regularly review the partnerships to monitor the latest vendor developments, while continuing to assess the wider industry for new and emergent security companies and technologies.