Forcepoint, a cybersecurity firm jointly owned by U.S defence giant Raytheon on Wednesday unveiled a new centre in India that would help enterprises globally and customers in the country to thwart cyber-attacks.
The facility called ‘Center of Excellence for Customer Success’ in Bengaluru would provide Forcepoint enterprise customers with 24/7 support services worldwide. The Austin-based company said the staff in Bengaluru will focus on supporting the entire Forcepoint behaviour-based cybersecurity portfolio. The firm said this enables customers to quickly and securely onboard enterprise users to the cloud, protect critical data and intellectual property and stop insider threats.
“We knew India was the right place...What we found across all of India is the incredibly talented workforce and also the deep cyber roots,” said Kristin Machacek Leary, chief human resources officer for Forcepoint, in an interview.
Cybersecurity jobs
She said the new facility employs nearly 100 people and the company has plans to create 200 highly skilled jobs by the end of next year. “I've been so impressed with the calibre and now from a cybersecurity perspective... the incredible professionalized workforce that we have is just outstanding,” said Ms. Leary whose firm is forging relationships with education institutions to hire talent.
The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) reports that in 2017 more than 53,000 cybersecurity incidents were observed: these include phishing, website intrusions, ransomware and denial of service attacks. Ms. Leary said that Forcepoint is also eyeing the security market in India and looking to tap the enterprise customers in the country.
Forcepoint also has an enterprise technical support centre in Chennai. It said the latest investment in India signals the company’s aggressive plan to accelerate its ability to deliver human-centric security solutions.This means instead of emphasizing technology to protect a perimeter that no longer exists, security must focus on the cyber behaviours of people and protect against those behaviours that are known to lead to critical data and IP loss, according to Forcepoint.