AT&T is mulling the sale of its five-year-old cybersecurity unit, according to a new report.
The carrier giant’s cybersecurity solutions business, which was launched in 2018, includes assets from AT&’s purchase of open-source threat intelligence firm AlienVault in the same year. The company has been working with Barclays to explore bids for its cybersecurity business, according to a report from Reuters.
Dallas-based AT&T did not respond to CRN’s request for comment on the alleged selloff by publication time.
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The cybersecurity unit was created to make AlienVault’s cybersecurity technologies and AT&T’s existing security capabilities accessible to all businesses, from Fortune 100 companies all the way down the chain to local mom-and-pop stores, the carrier said in 2018. The business unit today offers security consulting services, endpoint security, network security, and threat detection and response services.
In the past five years, however, AT&T has become increasingly focused on its core telecom business. Elliott Management in 2019 revealed a $3.2 billion stake in AT&T and laid out a series of changes intended to boost AT&T’s stock price and help it return to its telecom roots. The company in 2022 spun off its hard-fought $85.4 billion deal for Time Warner, which became WarnerMedia under AT&T. AT&T said last year that the spinoff gave the company room to “focus intensely” on 5G and fiber-based connectivity growth and on revamping its declining business wireline segment.
AT&T has said that it cut its net debt by about $24 billion in 2022 and the company is looking to trim another $32 billion by 2025.
Financial terms of any potential deal have not been disclosed and it’s not clear how much AT&T’s cybersecurity business is worth today, according to the report.