SSH Communications Security Corporation, stock exchange release, 4 June 2019 at 09:00 am EEST
SSH COMMUNICATIONS SECURITY CORPORATION ANNOUNCES ITS SSH200 GROWTH VISION
The company’s new SSH200 growth vision aims at over 200 million euros in long term annual revenue in the identity and access management market
SSH.COM's Board of Directors has approved the company's new SSH200 growth vision, which aims at over 200 million euro annual revenue in the identity and access management market during the 2020s.
The SSH200 vision describes SSH.COM’s long-term growth ambitions. The growth vision is based on systematic long-term activities, and results will start showing over time. The growth vision does not affect our published guidance, which remains unchanged.
Foundations of the Vision
Underlying the SSH200 vision is how digital transformation, adoption of cloud services, the erosion of digital borders, and growing cybersecurity threats are driving the growth of the cybersecurity market and in particular how they drive major enterprises to integrate identity management, access management, cloud security, and underlying platform security to be more agile and resilient.
Our view is that these new challenges will require a more proactive security posture. Remote working, the explosion in the number of connected devices, changes in business models, and the use of multiple cloud services are eroding borders and pushing organizations towards a zero-trust architecture, where every access to every service is authenticated every time. Boundaries and reactive solutions are not sufficient. Solutions must be more agile, faster to deploy and integrate with other elements of enterprise information systems. Security must be implemented on every layer, from networks to platforms to applications.
Focus on Intelligent Access Control
Our vision is that Intelligent Access Control will be a key focus area in enterprise security in the coming years. This is the segment where SSH.COM focuses on and where it aims to grow.
The research firm Market Research Future estimates the relevant market segment (Privileged Access Management) to grow to more than 5,000 million euros by 2023 (>30% compound annual growth rate) with the growth continuing rapidly even afterward. According to, e.g., Gartner and IDC, the share of cloud-related solutions in this market will grow quickly.
The SSH200 vision and SSH Product Portfolio
SSH.COM’s growth products PrivX® and Universal SSH Key Manager® (UKM) are both essential parts of this vision.
UKM helps organizations manage their platform-level access credentials and machine identities using SSH keys. It solves a major cyber hygiene issue that only the largest financials and a few other leading-edge companies have so far addressed.
We estimate that there are thousands of potential customers for SSH key management solutions with typical customer value ranging from a hundred thousand up to millions of euros. Auditors have started putting more emphasis on SSH keys, which is accelerating the emergence of the market. The UKM solution is unique in that it provides full discovery of existing access connections inside the enterprise infrastructure. SSH.COM also holds by far the most substantial patent portfolio in this area, with 15 granted UKM-related patents and more applications pending, which will help us obtain and maintain a strong market position long-term and potentially get licensing revenues from other vendors.
PrivX is a modern approach to privileged access management and cloud access control. It helps customers focus on solving the access problem quickly, without costly infrastructure or extended deployment projects. It was designed from the beginning for cloud, multi-cloud, and hybrid environments and the zero-trust model.
The market for PrivX is very large; much of the privileged access market would benefit from the ease of deployment, multi-cloud and hybrid capabilities, lightweight infrastructure, scalability, reliability, and end-user convenience. Cloud service providers can use it to offer privileged access as a service, something traditional Privileged Access Management systems cannot readily do. Several patents and patent applications help SSH.COM maintain our unique advantages in this area.
PrivX also combines with UKM. While UKM brings existing legacy access under control, PrivX offers enterprises a strategic path forward for both key-based automated access and other privileged access and service provider access into their systems. The combination helps enterprises solve regulatory and audit challenges that no other solution adequately addresses.
Key Capabilities and Strategic Actions
In 2018, the company's Universal SSH Key Manager® and Tectia® SSH products brought the company strong cash flow and a profit of approximately 6 million euros. The healthy profitability of these products has, in part, enabled the company to invest nearly 20 million euros so far into its new products such as PrivX®.
Overall, SSH.COM is well positioned to increase its market share in the identity and access management market, and especially in its fastest-growing cloud-related segment. We also benefit from the profitable base business around the SSH protocol and our unique position in the growing SSH key management area.
The company’s SSH.COM web site now gets 470,000 monthly visitors according to Google Analytics (May 2019), significantly more than many much larger competitors. The company holds more than 50 patents, many of them on fundamental cybersecurity and cloud technologies.
As part of its growth vision, SSH.COM is exploring strategic actions to accelerate growth and increase shareholder value. These actions may include, for example, strategic alliances, sales and marketing co-operation, or other strategic or structural actions to maximize the success and value of the company’s business.
Comments from the Board
SSH founder and Board member Tatu Ylönen comments: “SSH.COM has built foundational cybersecurity products since we launched in 1995 and our solutions and protocols are cornerstones of the secure Internet. Our growth vision is based on building better, easier, and more cost-effective solutions for customers. It is based on a strong, research-based vision of where the security market and customers’ needs are going in the 2020s.”
SSH.COM’s Chairman of the Board Petri Kuivala adds: “The SSH200 vision describes our long-term growth ambitions and where we want to go and think we have the potential to reach. Achieving this goal requires systematic long-term work, and results will start showing gradually over time. The growth vision does not affect our published 2019 and medium-term guidance, which remains unchanged.”
Further Information at Capital Markets Day
The company will tell investors more about its growth vision and the market in an analyst and investor event to be held on Monday, June 10, 2019, at 9:00 am in Hotel Scandic Simonkenttä, Room Espa (Simonkatu 9, Helsinki).
The invitation and registration instructions can be found here: https://blog.ssh.com/capital-markets-day-june-10. Attendees are kindly requested to register for the Capital Markers Day no later than June 5, 2019.
SSH COMMUNICATIONS SECURITY CORPORATION
Kaisa Olkkonen
CEO
For further information, please contact:
Kaisa Olkkonen, CEO, tel. +358 40 5795216
Distribution:
Nasdaq Helsinki Oy
Major media
www.ssh.com
About SSH Communications Security
SSH.COM helps organizations access, secure, and control their digital core – their critical data, applications, and services. We have over 3,000 customers around the world, including 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies, many of the world’s largest financial institutions, and major organizations in all verticals. We are committed to helping our customers thrive in the cloud era with solutions that offer secure access with zero inertia, zero friction, and zero credentials risk. SSH.COM sells online; through offices in North America, Europe and Asia; and through a global network of certified partners. The company’s shares (SSH1V) are quoted on the NASDAQ Helsinki. For more information, visit www.ssh.com.