Orange Cyberdefense accelerates its international expansion with new Moroccan presence to cover French-speaking African countries

At the Assises de l'Ausim 2018 Convention , which starts today in Marrakesh, Orange Cyberdefense announced its new hub in Morocco to further strengthen its international development.

Cybersecurity is becoming a major challenge for businesses and administrations alike to meet the domestic and international regulations that require them to strengthen systems and protect strategic information. Africa is currently investing in the field of cybersecurity with a forecast that the market will grow from $1.33 billion in 2017 to $2.32 billion by 2020.¹

Based in Casablanca, Morocco, the new Orange Cyberdefense operations plan to recruit the best local talent available and will rely on the leading French cybersecurity Center of Excellence. The objective is to have approximately fifty specialists in Morocco by 2020. To boost its growth, this hub will be committed to coaching young recruits through partnerships with major French engineering schools to train tomorrow’s cybersecurity engineers.

The solutions and value propositions will be the same as those already offered in France across all activities, ranging from consulting and penetration tests (Pentests), to protective and surveillance services with a CyberSoc and a CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team). The experts based in Morocco will have access to all of the expertise, methodologies and best practices from Orange Cyberdefense and will work in close collaboration with the Orange teams in Morocco.

Cybersecurity is a strategic activity for the Orange Group. Present in twenty countries in Africa and the Middle East, the challenge for Orange Cyberdefense is to become the market’s leading player in the cybersecurity market. "This new operation center will give us a strong position in the Moroccan market and will make Orange Cyberdefense Morocco the central hub to meet the needs of businesses in French-speaking African countries where the Orange Group is already present. Our goal is to become the leader for cybersecurity in French-speaking Africa," said Michel Van Den Berghe, CEO of Orange Cyberdefense.

Since 2016, Orange Cyberdefense has brought together all cybersecurity activities of Orange for professionals (businesses, administrations and local authorities). Orange Cyberdefense designs, operates and monitors defense systems that protect its customers' essential assets. With revenues of €275 million in 2017 and an annual growth rate of more than 20%, Orange Cyberdefense is the cybersecurity leader in France and one of the main European players in the market. With more than 1,300 employees spread across France and worldwide, Orange Cyberdefense supports public and private organizations to develop, implement and manage cybersecurity strategies.

^{1 Convention of Morocco’s Association of IT Users}

About d'Orange Business Services

Orange Business Services, the B2B branch of the Orange Group, and its 25,000 employees, is focused on supporting the digital transformation of multinational enterprises and French SMEs across five continents. Orange Business Services is not only an infrastructure operator, but also a technology integrator and a value-added service provider. It offers companies digital solutions that help foster collaboration within their teams (collaborative workspaces and mobile workspaces), better serve their customers (enriched customer relations and business innovation), and support their projects (enriched connectivity, flexible IT and cyberdefense). The integrated technologies that Orange Business Services offer range from Software Defined Networks (SDN/NFV), Big Data and IoT, to cloud computing, unified communications and collaboration, as well as cybersecurity. Orange Business Services customers include over 3,000 renowned multinational corporations at an international level and over two million professionals, companies and local communities in France.

Learn more at www.orange-business.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and our blogs. Orange is one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators with annual sales of 41 billion euros in 2017 and has 260 million customers in 28 countries at 30 June 2018. Orange is listed on Euronext Paris (symbol ORA) and on the New York Stock Exchange (symbol ORAN).

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