Comcast Launches New Cyber Security Business Unit

Telco and media conglomerate Comcast has jumped headfirst into the enterprise cybersecurity business, betting that its internal security tools and inventions can find traction in an expanding marketplace.

The Philadelphia technology giant has created a new cyber security business unit led by former Zscaler executive Nicole Bucala to develop and sell what Comcast is describing as a “security data fabric platform.

In a note announcing the new business unit, Comcast said the long-term plan is to bring its own chief information security officer’s (CISO) inventions to market, betting that its size and scale provides a major competitive advantage. By entering the enterprise cybersecurity market, Comcast is looking to capitalize on this growing demand for better protection against cyber threats.

“The solutions we are commercializing are imagined, designed, built and used by Comcast itself. [We have] a high bar for the effectiveness of technologies; so for any internally built solution to survive, it has to be efficient and cost effective at scale,” Bucala said, arguing that this maturity provides trust to enterprise buyers.

The new cyber security business unit is housed in Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS), the division within Comcast that takes internally developed technology and makes it available to other enterprises.

The company said its CTS division has successfully commercialized multiple internal inventions in content and streaming, advertising, communications infrastructure, and other technologies.

With the increasing number of cyber attacks, companies are turning to Comcast for help. Comcast is now offering its enterprise cyber security services to help businesses protect their data and systems from malicious actors. The new cyber security business unit has rolled out its first product, called DataBee, that offers a place to centralize security, compliance, and business data.

The DataBee Platform claims it can  ingest data from multiple feeds, then aggregate, compress, standardize, enrich, correlate, and normalize it before transferring a full time-series dataset to data lakes.

Comcast’s entrance in the enterprise cyber security business comes at a tricky time. In the midst of an economic downturn that has led to layoffs and cutbacks in enterprise spending, analysts remain bullish on cyber security as a revenue generator. However, with its expertise in network security and cloud computing, Comcast is well-positioned to provide companies with the necessary tools and resources they need to keep their data safe and secure.

Microsoft says it is now raking in $20 billion a year from cyber security-related revenue linked to enterprise consolidation of computing, security and compliance tools. Like Microsoft, Google has also jumped headfirst into the space, spending heavily to acquire Mandiant and Siemplify to beef up with cloud and business security offerings.