Auriga, a leading supplier of technological solutions for the omnichannel banking and payments industries, announces the acquisition of Lookwise Device Manager (LDM), a modular security platform and cybersecurity business unit from S21sec, a leading European managed security services player. S21sec is part of Sonae IM’s portfolio, a corporate venture capital firm investing in cybersecurity, retail and telecommunications technology companies.

Seamlessly integrating LDM into Auriga’s WWS software suite, Auriga will enable its customers to benefit from full protection, security monitoring and control of their networked devices critical to the business, such as ATMs, point of sale terminals and critical infrastructure control systems.

LDM is highly regarded in the market. In 2018, LDM gained the ATM Cyber Security Excellence Award at ATM Customer Experience & Security Summit. According to the independent judges, the solution won the award because of how “it provides multi-layered protection to block the generation of logical attacks based on malware, achieving significant ubiquity, proactively preparing the ATM industry to help combat the next frontier of crime in financial services”.

The agreement sees Auriga acquire and integrate the LDM technology into its software portfolio. This allows an organisation to manage the security of its ATM infrastructure by centrally protecting, monitoring and controlling its ATM equipment. Designed as an integrated security solution, LDM provides the most advanced and most effective countermeasures to stop current and future generations of cyber-attacks. It is a modular security platform that offers a broad range of functions  to ensure proper protection, monitoring and control of critical devices.

Following the acquisition, Auriga will continue investment into research and development of LDM and enable improvements including faster time to market for deployment. The modularity of LDM complements Auriga’s WWS software and Auriga plans to explore how LDM can be extended to secure different critical infrastructure within an organisation including point of sale systems. S21sec also will cooperate with Auriga on offering cybersecurity consultancy to clients.

This operation is totally aligned with S21sec strategy of having an increased focus in the managed security services segment, allowing the company to dedicate all resources to its growth plan and reinforcing its position as one of Europe and Latin America’s leading cybersecurity pure players.

Commenting on the technology acquisition, Vincenzo Fiore, founder and CEO, Auriga said:

“Ever growing targeted attacks on self-service banking infrastructure are hugely disruptive and undermine trust in digital banking services. By making LDM an integral component of our own software portfolio we can significantly build the most effective cyber risk management and security capabilities for our clients that protect growth in digital financial services across all channels.”

“By adding in this cutting-edge technology and specialist expertise in ATM cybersecurity, we are re-affirming our strategy of evolving our product portfolio to meet the changing needs of our clients with the best integrated technology platforms,” he added.

Agustin Munoz-Grandez, CEO, S21sec said:

“We are delighted that our ATM security technology and business unit will become an integral part of Auriga, a company that is very aligned with S21sec’s own spirit of innovation spirit and focus on striving for excellence. We look forward to supporting Auriga and its clients in making self-service banking safer and even more protected from cyber-attacks in the future. As an added value to this operation, S21sec and Auriga will also be collaborating to offer additional cybersecurity services to financial institutions.”

Carlos Moreira da Silva, Director at Sonae IM, said:

“We are very pleased with this operation between Auriga and S21sec. Since the investment in S21sec back in 2014, we’ve been supporting the development of technologies and capabilities within the company to address the most emerging and advanced cybersecurity market needs. We’re very glad that Lookwise Device Manager has developed not only as a very strong technology for protecting ATM machines and critical devices, but also as an independent business unit, with strong customer references across the globe, allowing it now to be supported by such a leading supplier in the banking and payments industry as Auriga.”