LevelBlue, a Dallas-based managed security services provider, announced Tuesday that it is expanding its managed detection and response business through a strategic partnership with cybersecurity firm Fortra that includes the acquisition of Fortra’s Alert Logic managed services unit.
The companies said the agreement covers Alert Logic’s Managed Detection and Response services, along with associated Extended Detection and Response and Web Application Firewall managed services. The announcement positions the deal as both a consolidation in the crowded managed security market and a reconfiguration of how Fortra intends to sell and support parts of its portfolio.
At the center of the arrangement is a split between software and services. LevelBlue will take on the delivery of certain Alert Logic managed offerings, while Fortra becomes a prominent technology partner whose software and platforms will be made available to LevelBlue’s customers through its managed services model. The result is a tighter coupling between product vendors and outsourced security operators, reflecting a broader industry pattern in which clients seek a single point of accountability for security operations, while vendors look for distribution through channel partners rather than direct service delivery.
Sundhar Annamalai, LevelBlue’s chief strategy officer, told CyberScoop that he sees the deal as “all upside” for AlertLogic’s MDR users.
“Nothing’s going to change for customers,” Annamalai told CyberScoop. “The experience remains the same as they go through their changes down the line, whether that’s through their own acquisitions or they’re expanding globally. We want to be the partner they turn to to manage their cybersecurity outcomes. Given where we operate, the scale at which we operate, our ‘Follow the Sun’ strategy, we believe we’re a logical choice to grow with our customers.”
Both companies framed the move as an effort to broaden coverage across the attack surface, from cloud infrastructure to employee email accounts to public-facing applications. In practical terms, the firms are arguing that combining telemetry, tooling and operational staffing under a single managed provider can improve detection speed and response coordination, especially for customers with complex environments.
“When we made the strategic decision to redouble our focus on providing software, as well as looking for a home for the Alert Logic services and team, it was important to us to find a place where customers would be protected, and our employees would not only be taken care of but also have potential for continued career growth,” Matt Reck, CEO of Fortra, told CyberScoop. “We could not be more excited about LevelBlue as a partner — both for our customers and our shared vision of the need in the market, but also for the Alert Logic team members.”
LevelBlue said the acquisition will give Alert Logic’s existing customer base access to what it described as a larger global footprint and broader threat telemetry. The emphasis on telemetry highlights a key competitive lever in managed detection: providers claim advantage not only through staffing and procedures in a security operations center, but also through the volume and variety of signals they can ingest across clients and environments.
The companies also emphasized complementary capabilities. Fortra’s tools were cited as extending LevelBlue’s existing strengths in data security, brand protection, email security and offensive security. The language signals an attempt to offer customers a broader menu of security functions without requiring them to integrate and manage multiple vendors on their own, a recurring pain point in enterprise security operations.
The acquisition is LevelBlue’s fourth in the past year. In July, the company acquired Trustwave and Aon’s cybersecurity and intellectual property litigation consulting groups, which include Stroz Friedberg and Elysium Digital. In October, the company announced it would acquire Cybereason.
Annamalai told CyberScoop that the Fortra deal, along with the others, shows the company is very particular about the services it wants to provide to its customer base as it grows.
“A lot of this is, how do you drive towards security outcomes, and do that in the way that customers have chosen their own security destinies,” he told CyberScoop. “We want to do that through a technology platform that lets us be adaptable to the journey customers are on, but also platform-centric in the way that we support our customers on a go-forward basis. And so when we think about our investments, it’s on a platform strategy that lets us serve customers on their own security journey.”
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.