Aerospace giant Airbus and French IT services company Atos are opening negotiations for a potential sale of Atos' Big Data and Security business.
Following a stock-boosting Dec. 15 leak to Reuters, in a Jan. 3 market update, Atos revealed that it had received two letters of interest in BDS, with Airbus' encompassing the entire business at a valuation between €1.5 and 1.8 billion.
The offer is nonbinding, and the talks are preliminary.
Airbus has been eyeing Atos' cybersecurity arm since at least March 2022, having previously made an offer for a 29.9% stake in Atos parent division Evidian before abandoning the plan.
He questions whether general cybersecurity can get the job done for an organization in such a specialized industry.
Airbus has already suffered its share of security lapses in recent years, not uncommon to the industry as a whole, leading some to put a brighter spotlight on this most safety-critical industry.
In the US, one development aimed at tackling the specifics of aviation security is the Transportation Security Administration's brand new set of requirements for airport and aircraft operators.
In the EU, there's Implementing Regulation 2023/203, a framework for managing information security risks in aviation, set to take effect in 2025-26.
This Cyber News was published on www.darkreading.com. Publication date: Thu, 04 Jan 2024 20:55:23 +0000