Bharti Airtel has entered into a partnership with Symantec Corporation to protect businesses in India from online threats. The partnership comes amid a spike in cyber attacks over the past few months, including ransomwares such as Petya and WannaCry that disrupted systems across the world.

According to the agreement, Airtel will be the exclusive Cyber Security Services partner for Symantec in India, and will distribute the US-based software firm’s enterprise security software, the companies said.

Through the partnership, the two companies will target the IT security requirements of large enterprises, small and medium businesses, as well as the government.

“Increasingly sophisticated cyber threats with potential to disrupt business continuity are the new normal in today’s digitally connected world. Enterprises need to guard against these emerging threats and Airtel, with its experience in serving businesses with integrated connectivity solutions, is uniquely positioned to serve them,” Gopal Vittal, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (India and South Asia), Airtel, told reporters here on Monday.

He said the partnership will help Airtel add value to existing enterprise relationships and further consolidate its leadership position in the B2B space.

“We think this is a rising tide... It will have decades of constant recurring revenues. Cyber crime is a new theatre of crime, of warfare, that will be with us for centuries. We think the alliance is well positioned to benefit from that rising tide,” said Greg Clark, CEO, Symantec.

Airtel Business serves over 2,000 large enterprise accounts, plus more than 2.50 lakh corporate and tech start-ups, with its integrated telecom solutions. In addition, it has a strong presence in Central and State government departments/divisions.

“With this partnership, under one service-level agreement, Indian organisations can bolster their cyber defence and respond to new threats as they emerge at a significantly lower operational cost,” Clark said.

Symantec has blocked over a billion Petya and Wannacry infection attempts since the launch of the two malware platforms, and they are an example of the risks, “both financial and mission critical”, that organisations face, he added.

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