Category: U.K

Ahead of the pre-planned €5 billion carve-out, Atos has reportedly unveiled its Eviden brand.

In June 2022, Atos – the leading French multinational IT service and consulting company – announced to curate strategies to split itself down the middle.

As planned, the company has cleaved itself in two, with its burgeoning digital, big data, and security (BDS) lines to operate as Eviden, according to Consultancy Europe.

The other half, which comprises the business’s tech foundations business line, will continue under the Atos name. To differentiate this carved-out, future entity from the current Atos business, the company is addressing it as TFCo for now. 

Breaking Down the Carve-out

The split-up, costing around €1.5 billion, is planned to be “effective at the earliest on July 1, 2023, and at the latest on December 31, 2023”. The brand of the spin-off business was launched in April this year.

The new business, initially slated to be launched as Evidian, later spun out from Atosunder the name “Eviden,” retaining the same etymology (“evidence”).

The post-carve-out Atos business is planned to constitute the Digital Workplace, Data Centre and Hosting, Unified Communications, and Business Process Outsourcing units of Atos. 

Operating within the Atos business and trading as “Eviden, an Atos business,” the spin-off company also includes the Atos Consulting business.

Eviden – which comprises the shrinking units of the parent company – would have a headcount of roughly 48000 globally and revenues of around €5.4B.

Atos has confirmed to invest €1.1 billion during the 2022-2026 period as part of its effort to support a return on investment (ROI).

Fleshing Out the Reasons Behind the Split-up

After conducting a “preliminary strategic review,” Atos, one of the world’s leading IT businesses with revenues of €11 billion – decided to split itself into two separate entities in order to “unlock more value” for the stakeholders. 

However, tough economic headwinds facing the company have been marked as the key reason behind the spin-off. 

Even though the IT business is expanding at a breakneck pace globally, last year, Atos saw a sharp decline of 3% in its revenue. Earlier this year, the technology consulting giant issued its third profit warning due to the significant difference in the financial KPIs, causing the company’s shares to plunge to their lowest since mid-2022. 

The strategy Atos adopted to cleave itself in two businesses is similar to how IBM spun out its $19B managed infrastructure services into Kyndryl in November 2021.

According to its hot-off-the-presses site, Eviden is committed to turning out as a global leader in “data-driven, trusted and sustainable digital transformation,” bringing together the digital, cloud, and big data & security business lines of the parent company Atos.

Billing itself as “one of the largest carve-outs the industry has ever seen,” Eviden demonstrates its vision to “expand the possibilities of data and technology”.

That said, being a highly intricate and cross-functional process, a carve-out transaction needs to be executed carefully and by experts.

For any dynamic business looking to maximise its transaction value, investing in an expert carve-out consulting service like Fission Consulting is a logical investment.

A high-end service helps streamline the slew of complex and lengthy processes to speed up the overall separation timeline while ensuring data accuracy.

Wrapping Up

Nikki Kelly, former Senior Vice President for Public Sector and Defence in Northern Europe at Atos has been elected as the CEO of Northern Europe & APAC for Eviden, an Atos company.

“I’m excited to start my new role with Eviden as the CEO for Northern Europe & Asia Pacific,” stated the newly appointed CEO. “A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help scale a €5 billion new company with deep industry expertise, innovation in our DNA, helping our clients to be competitive and deliver secure, digital business solutions quickly at scale.”

Cybersecurity has been a concern for businesses and entities since the dawn of the internet. And, as communications technology evolves, so do the attack vectors. 

A quick response enabled by immediate detection is often key with a cyber attack. If businesses can’t have their own detection and response teams, they may employ the Security Operations Centre (SOC) services of Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) like DigitalXRAID.

However, technology has been evolving rather rapidly, which means newer threats are emerging. And, as businesses adopt digital transformation, they need to be aware of potential dangers they might face.

Two such cyber security issues recently discussed have been cybersecurity in space and cyber risk due to climate change.

Cybersecurity in Space Deemed “Urgent”, Needing “High-Level Attention”, Says US National Cyber Director

The US National Cyber Director, Kemba Walden, spoke to reporters at the RSA conference on the 26th of April 2023. 

She said cybersecurity in outer space was a pressing issue that was to be discussed in the first space industry cybersecurity workshop hosted by the White House.

“We are all aware that the first ‘shot’ in the current Ukraine conflict was a cyberattack against a US space company,” Walden said.

She was, of course, referring to Russia’s attempt to jam SpaceX’s Spacelink, which was being used to provide Ukraine with internet connectivity.

Walden called space systems cybersecurity “an incredibly complex and unique space ecosystem”, which required “a very close public-private partnership”.

She went on to explain that nation-state threat actors like China and Russia are being considered cyber threats to space systems, and calling such attacks—that on Starlink and the one on Viasat—“acts of war”.

Secure-by-design space technology is something that the White House has been talking about a lot recently. 

Released last month, the White House’s Cybersecurity Strategy mentioned how space-based systems—including navigation, positioning, and environmental monitoring—needed to be secure.

Walden also mentioned that the US Space Policy Directive 5, which outlines cybersecurity design principles for space systems, is something they want to focus on.

The principles are being decided and the next steps would be to collaborate with the industry to put these into action.

How Climate Change Is Increasing Cyber-Risks

One would assume that climate change and cybersecurity are topics that are poles apart. However, there are several connections between these two issues.

These connections were highlighted by Chloe Messdaghi, CEO and Founder of Global Secure Partners.

According to Ms Messdaghi, issues caused by climate change provided more opportunities for threat actors to attack.

Attacks on Green Energy Sources

In order to reduce greenhouse emissions, the world is shifting towards green energy sources. These energy sources rely on new technologies. Since they are new, they may not have a well-rounded defence against cyber attacks.

For instance, electric vehicles are reliant on a network of charge points. These would be connected to the grid and managed through a central system. This could be targeted by threat actors.

Whilst this was a hypothetical example, Ms Messdaghi also brought up the cyber-incident at Vestas Wind Systems. That attack forced the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines to stop IT operations across a number of locations.

Extreme Weather Conditions Damaging Critical Digital Systems

Another risk that accompanies climate change that would affect cybersecurity is extreme weather events.

Climate change can result in more frequent and devastating hurricanes and tsunamis. These could affect critical digital systems—damaging underwater communications cables or off-site servers.

Any disruptions such damage would cause could be used as an opportunity by threat actors to attack.

Such weather events might also lead to an increase in remote working. If workers are not careful, they can be targeted for phishing attacks. These, in turn, could be used to get into the employers’ systems and data.

Deteriorating Relationships Between Countries

Climate change can lead to rising temperatures, which then affect geopolitical stability. As people are displaced due to famines caused by rising temperatures, the resulting migration could lead to tensions between countries.

These tensions could then be used as an excuse to conduct cyber attacks on the rival nation’s infrastructure.

It might sound incredible right now, but the pace at which technology is evolving means that we constantly need to look at cybersecurity from all angles. Because, even if we don’t, threat actors would definitely be trying to find any chinks in the cybersecurity armour.

(Threat actors are already using AI for creating malware, whilst cybersecurity experts are considering it for penetration testing.)

And, whilst things seem unrelated, nothing exists in isolation. We need to look at how changes in one system could affect the way it interacts with other systems.