Deloitte buys boutique cyber security consultancy SecurePath in Malaysia

Deloitte has boosted its risk advisory practice in Southeast Asia with the acquisition of boutique cyber consultancy SecurePath.

Professional services giant Deloitte has backed up its December purchase of Singaporean blockchain specialist Practical Smarts with a fresh APAC acquisition in the cyber domain, bringing on board boutique KL-based consultancy SecurePath to its Malaysian risk advisory practice. SecurePath founder Kim Chuen (KC) Chung will join Deloitte as partner, crossing together to the firm with his team.

"SecurePath’s capability will scale up and accelerate Deloitte’s cyber risk services, particularly enhancing our ability to offer clients expertise in data loss prevention, cyber threat defence and other cyber related services,” said Thio Tse Gan, cyber risk practice leader for Southeast Asia. “They will enhance and complement our existing investments in the design, build and running of bespoke cyber risk services for clients.”

Established in 2011, SecurePath offers services in cyber threat defence, governance, risk & compliance, and information management & protection, and partners with a number of vendors including, Veritas, NetIQ and Symantec – with the Cyber Security Services business of the latter soon set to be picked up Accenture. Less than a year ago, Deloitte also added Australian cyber analytics firm Converging Data.

“Today, businesses are investing in projects and programmes that help them to monitor and stay alert to key risk events in real time – such as fraud, cyber security, compliance and financial crime,” said James Nunn-Price, Deloitte’s cyber leader for the Asia Pacific. “SecurePath helps their clients build and implement solutions so that they can get the insight needed to stay ahead of, and block, the threats.”

According to Chung, who prior to establishing SecurePath spent time at both Symatec and Accenture (along with nearly seven years as an advisory and IT specialist with IBM), joining up with Deloitte will create an “unparalleled synergy in the market”, by combining the Big Four firm’s strong branding and presence, both locally and regionally, with the credentials of the SecurePath team.

“We have been working very closely with Symantec, Veritas and NetIQ for many years, and have established ourselves as the premier go-to partner for customers who desire high quality services in extracting the maximum value from their investments in these technologies,” said Chung. “Our team has successfully and repeatedly proven to excel in providing turnkey project delivery services.”

Incidentally, cyber risk executive director Siew Kei Ho of Deloitte’s Malaysia branch only recently penned a reminder on basic cyber-resilience – repeating the industry adage that ‘it’s not a matter of if, but when’ for organisations facing the growing number of online attacks – by highlighting research which suggested that some 95 percent of security breaches in 2018 were readily preventable.