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By Staff Writer
Two leading cybersecurity firms have joined forces to launch Collective Defence, a new platform to protect critical infrastructure.
The new cybersecurity and national security company, called Collective Defence, has launched following the merger of ITC Secure and IronNet.
The move follows growing global cyber threats from both state and non-state actors, criminal groups and individuals.
Collective Defence will bring together advanced cybersecurity and AI capabilities to defend critical infrastructure against state-sponsored and hybrid threats, according to Arno Robbertse, the company’s CEO.
Headquartered in Luxembourg, the company operates across the United States, United Kingdom and Singapore.
Robbertse told National Security News that the company is designed to counter escalating hybrid warfare targeting energy grids, telecommunications networks, financial systems, healthcare and satellite infrastructure, where state actors and proxies conduct persistent campaigns that blur the lines between cyber operations, disinformation and physical disruption.
ITC Secure has been involved in managed security services and security operations for more than 30 years, and has also provided advisory support to governments and critical infrastructure operators.
IronNet is a leader in collective defence and network detection technology, enabling real-time threat sharing and collaborative detection across organisations and allied nations.
The combined platform will allow governments and critical infrastructure operators to share intelligence, coordinate defensive activity and respond to hybrid threats in real time within a sovereign framework, according to Robbertse.
Luxembourg’s role within NATO and the European Union, alongside its regulatory and data protection framework, underpins its selection as global headquarters, maintaining proximity to government and security partners across the Five Eyes community, NATO and the Indo-Pacific.
In partnership with Microsoft, Collective Defence has deployed Microsoft Security Copilot within its security operations centre, embedding AI-driven analysis to accelerate detection and response across multiple environments.
In an interview with National Security News, Robbertse said that one of the main areas of concern for multinational companies was the shifting threat landscape.
He said: “What has fundamentally changed is scale, speed and intent. We are no longer dealing primarily with isolated criminal campaigns seeking financial gain. We are facing persistent, state-aligned operations designed to pre-position access inside critical infrastructure, manipulate democratic institutions and hold national economies at risk.”
“Attackers already operate collectively. They share tooling, trade access, reuse infrastructure and collaborate across borders. Democracies, by contrast, still defend largely in silos: company by company, sector by sector, nation by nation. That asymmetry is now dangerous.”
“When ransomware groups act as strategic proxies for hostile states; when critical infrastructure is scanned continuously for vulnerabilities; when satellite, energy, financial and communications systems are interdependent, resilience can no longer be built at the level of a single enterprise. National resilience now depends on networked resilience. Collective Defence exists to close that asymmetry gap, moving from isolated defence to coordinated, real-time protection across trusted ecosystems.”
Robbertse emphasised that cyber conflict is now a core geopolitical issue, adding:
“The old model treated cyber as an IT risk. That framing is obsolete. Today, cyber operations are instruments of statecraft. They are used to apply economic pressure, shape political outcomes, degrade industrial capacity and signal strategic intent, all below the threshold of conventional war.”
“Criminal groups provide deniability and scalability. State actors provide strategic direction and capability. Critical infrastructure provides leverage. Cyber defence is no longer the responsibility of any enterprise alone. It is a matter for national security councils, defence ministries and finance ministries. Governments must think in terms of economic warfare resilience, protecting energy grids, payment systems, satellite networks, logistics chains and industrial control systems as strategic assets, not just commercial ones.”
From reactive cybersecurity to networked resilience
“We shift from ‘protect my perimeter’ to ‘protect our ecosystem’. The goal is not simply to detect an attack, but to contain it before it propagates systemically. That is the difference between reactive cybersecurity and collective resilience,” Robbertse told National Security News.
“The industry has largely been built around perimeter tools and post-incident response. Our model is different in three fundamental ways: network-effect intelligence, AI-enabled pattern recognition at scale and operational coordination, not just alerts. Telemetry, behavioural signals and adversary patterns are analysed across a trusted ecosystem. If one member sees a novel technique, all members benefit immediately. AI is embedded in our detection and correlation engine, identifying weak signals across multiple environments that would never be visible in isolation. We focus on orchestrated defence, coordinated response playbooks, sector-level visibility and cross-organisational resilience exercises.”
Robbertse highlighted vulnerabilities in several critical sectors. He continued:
“Energy is uniquely vulnerable because it is geographically distributed but digitally interconnected, relies on legacy operational technology never designed for hostile network environments, and its disruption has immediate societal and political consequences. An attack on a power grid is not just an operational incident; it can create public panic, economic instability and geopolitical leverage within hours. Collective Defence changes the model by integrating IT and OT visibility, and connecting operators within a secure intelligence-sharing fabric. If a tactic is used against one regional grid operator, others are alerted in near real time with defensive guidance, not just raw indicators. Resilience in energy cannot be achieved in isolation. The grid is a network; its defence must be as well.”
“Space is already an operational domain of competition. Modern economies depend on satellite systems for GPS, communications, financial timing signals, military coordination and even energy grid synchronisation, yet much of this infrastructure was not designed with sustained cyber contest in mind. Vulnerabilities exist at multiple layers: ground stations, control systems, supply chains, signal interference, spoofing and software updates. Space will increasingly be a frontline, not necessarily through kinetic action, but through cyber interference and hybrid disruption. Satellite timing disruptions can cascade into financial or energy instability. That is precisely why cross-domain visibility matters.”
“Financial infrastructure and digital assets have matured rapidly in sophistication, but unevenly in security governance. Fragmentation is the core risk. If stablecoins become embedded in payment systems or sovereign digital strategies, cyber compromise is no longer just an investor issue; it becomes a systemic risk issue. National security implications emerge when sanctions can be bypassed, capital flows manipulated or payment rails destabilised. Collective Defence extends intelligence sharing and coordinated detection into financial and digital asset ecosystems, raising the baseline of resilience across participants.”
“Hybrid threats combine cyber, disinformation and physical disruption. Cyber intrusions may be paired with disinformation campaigns to amplify panic. Physical sabotage may follow digital reconnaissance. Financial pressure may coincide with political influence operations. The lesson from traditional alliances is clear: deterrence and resilience are strongest when information is shared quickly and trust is institutionalised before crisis. We apply three alliance principles: pre-agreed protocols for information exchange and response; regular joint exercises across sectors; and trusted membership frameworks to ensure sensitive data is protected. We are strengthening the connective tissue between industry and state.”
“Sovereignty and security are not mutually exclusive. Each nation and organisation retains control of its own data. What becomes collective is insight, not ownership. That balance is essential if democracies are to collaborate without compromising legal and regulatory obligations.”
“Effectiveness is measured by time to detection and containment, propagation prevention and systemic impact reduction. We have already seen instances where behavioural anomalies detected in one member environment allowed us to identify similar early-stage activity in others. In those cases, remediation occurred before encryption, disruption or public impact. That is the power of networked defence. The future of national resilience will not be determined by who has the most tools. It will be determined by who has the most trusted, coordinated ecosystem. Collective Defence is our commitment to building that ecosystem: protecting critical infrastructure, financial systems and democratic institutions through shared strength rather than isolated defence.”
Andre Pienaar, Chairman of Collective Defence, said:
“The threats facing critical infrastructure today are not conventional cyber risks. They are acts of hybrid warfare waged by nation-states against the systems our societies depend on. Collective Defence was created to bring together the technology, talent and partnerships needed to defend against these threats collectively, not in isolation. By combining ITC Secure’s deep expertise in protecting government and critical national infrastructure with IronNet’s pioneering collective defence technology, we have built something that neither company could achieve alone — a platform for allied nations and enterprises to stand together against the most sophisticated threats of our time.”
The Advisory Council is chaired by Edward Newberry, a former senior United States diplomat. Further leadership announcements are expected in the coming weeks.
Looking ahead, Collective Defence aims to ensure that allied nations and critical infrastructure can respond in real time, building resilience not in isolation, but together.
