- License business multiplied by factor 11 for 2019
- In addition to the energy sector, the share of customers from the networked production is rising
- Strategic partnerships and fully integrated solutions with component manufacturers in focus this year
Leipzig, Germany, 21 January 2020 - Rhebo, Europe's only independent provider of a combined network monitoring solution for industrial security and equipment availability, is closing the 2019 financial year with a further increase in sales. The German company is thus confirming the trend of recent years, which has seen a sharp increase in awareness among critical infrastructures and industrial companies with regard to securing their industrial automation networks. Especially in the area of critical infrastructures Rhebo was able to implement numerous installations, such as at EWR Netz, e-netz Südhessen and Leipziger Wasserwerke. The trend is also confirmed by the increase in Rhebo's licensing business, which rose by 1100 % in 2019. »The market has come to realize that continuous ICS monitoring as part of a defense-in-depth strategy is crucial for OT security, occupational safety and process stability,« says Rhebo CEO Klaus Mochalski, explaining the development.
In this context, Rhebo has also expanded its research and awareness activities. Among other things, the ICS monitoring solution Rhebo Industrial Protector was centrally integrated into a research project on Industry 4.0 and IoT at renowned Fraunhofer IOSB. In the first German training center for cyber security in critical infrastructures »CyberRange-e« of the German energy provider innogy, Rhebo has been supporting the training of power plant operators in the defense against advanced persistent threats and targeted attacks on their ICS.
»In 2019, energy suppliers were still the players with the clearest vision of industrial security,« says Klaus Mochalski, summing up the year 2019. »At the same time we are also seeing increasing awareness in the manufacturing industry, which generally reacts more slowly to technological developments. As an industry expert and the only independent provider of a combined OT security and condition monitoring solution for ICS in Europe, we were able to maintain our market lead. It has become clear to us that customer-oriented and comprehensive support from the initial risk and vulnerability analysis to continuous monitoring and forensic analysis is crucial for many companies.« Rhebo also owes this success to its cooperation with renowned service providers from the IT security industry such as Corning Service GmbH and Softline Solutions GmbH, who expand its market access with high-quality services and many years of expertise.
Market expansion and strong strategic partners
For 2020, Rhebo expects a continued increase in its licensing business. The management is therefore very optimistic about the next financing round. »The management of control and automation technology has become a priority in companies. This is not only about OT security, but also about the technical management of components in increasingly complex networks as part of predictive maintenance, asset management and the prevention of unplanned downtime,« says Rhebo COO Kristin Preßler, giving an outlook for 2020. »In addition, monitoring capabilities from the network to the end points within infrastructure with distributed critical assets will be expanded. For these reasons, we are continuing to focus on the development of fully integrated monitoring solutions for 2020, which offer operators of industrial networks both security and stability as well as the simplicity of security by design of their control components.« In 2020, the strategic partnerships with manufacturers of automation components will therefore be systematically expanded.
Bernd Arkenau, Partner at eCAPITAL entrepreneural partners AG, confirms the market trend: »Industrial control systems are the nervous systems for Industry 4.x and trends such as Smart Grid. Without watertight protection of these infrastructures, security of supply and productivity are at stake. And Rhebo is the only German provider of an innovative, fully-fledged and market-established solution for industrial network monitoring with anomaly detection that reliably addresses the challenges posed by growing network complexity and increasing risk vectors.« eCAPITAL has supported Rhebo as VC from the very beginning and has already contributed to two financing rounds.
About Rhebo
Rhebo is the only provider of industrial monitoring solutions to ensure both cybersecurity and stability of the ICS and IoT infrastructure in industrial, energy and water companies. The German company’s solutions monitor all communication within the ICS, and reliably report attacks, vulnerabilities as well as technical error states. Thus, Rhebo supports operators of ICS to increase cybersecurity, productivity and availability of their systems and plants, and to safeguard the digital transformation of their processes.
In this role, the company is actively involved in the Alliance for Cyber Security of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), the Teletrust - Bundesverband IT-Sicherheit e.V. and the Bitkom Security Management Working Group to develop standards and technical guidance.
Contact Rhebo
Kristin Preßler
COO
Tel. +49-341-393-790-180
press@rhebo.com
