Brinks breaks into Net security market

The company that once guarded the bat used by Hank Aaron when he broke Babe Ruth's home run record in 1974 and the diamond Richard Burton gave to Elizabeth Taylor has quietly entered the Internet security market.

Irving, Texas-based Brinks Inc. is best known for its armored cars and 142 years of experience guarding bank loot. Now, Brinks' home security subsidiary, Brinks Home Security Inc., has teamed with Hyperon Inc. to offer an intrusion detection and response service to companies that can't afford a full-time IT security staff.

Brinks Internet Security, as the alliance

between Brinks Home Security and Hyperon is called, marks the first time a traditional brick-and-mortar security firm like Brinks has entered the Internet security market, although Pinkerton has a network security consulting unit.

Hyperon is a consulting and outsourcing firm that specializes in intrusion detection and incident handling. It places an intrusion detection system on a customer's network that is monitored remotely through a central monitoring facility.

Fifteen Brinks agents have been deployed to the new Brinks Internet Security venture, which is co-located with Hyperon in Wilmington, Del. Some monitoring will also take place at Brinks' operations center in Irving, where 120 Brinks agents monitor the homes and businesses of 700,000 Brinks clients.

Business Enabler

Brinks' entry into the network security market makes it clear that "the assets that make up a company's value are changing," said Russ Gates, global managing director of technology risk consulting at Arthur Andersen LLP in Chicago. One of the challenges for Brinks will be looking at security as a strategic business enabler and not strictly as a protective barrier, he said.

"Brinks is not known as a high-tech company," said Bob Allen, chief operating officer at Brink's Home Security. "This is an expansion of the brand name and a logical extension that gets us into the high-tech market."

Brinks and Hyperon plan to issue a "Protected by Brinks" logo for use by e-commerce sites as a sign of assurance, said Allen.

The companies are just now entering into discussions with several financial services companies and plan to extend the service to the manufacturing industry, said Hyperon CEO Jim Molini.

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