Introducing New HSD Premium Partner: tien security

tien security recently became Premium Partner of Security Delta (HSD). The aim of this young – yet experienced - cybersecurity company is to provide SMEs with the levels of security usually reserved for larger organisations. As a security service provider, they want to unburden SME’s, by providing clear, smart, and affordable solutions that are available as a modular and scalable service. To learn more about their services and the people behind the company, we sat down with Curtis Partoredjo (Sales Manager) and Abram Schermer (General Director) at the HSD Campus.

The company has been active for about a year now and is still growing. Despite their young age, they have a solid backing of a large group of companies they are partnered with, as well as a dependable investor. The experienced team behind the company met at a previous employer and have all been active in security and IT for years.

Could you tell me a bit about what it is tien security does?

“We are mostly service providers”, Abram explains. “Our goal is to help all organisations in the Netherlands to reach an acceptable base level of security, to monitor this 24/7, and to help our customers and partners when incidents do occur. More importantly, we want to do this without companies having to hire a consultant for a large fee, something that is almost impossible for a smaller business.”

The company wants to make security as accessible as possible and is aimed almost exclusively at SMEs. “90 to 95% of our customer won’t have an in-house CISO or SOC”, Curtis points out. “Companies will usually know they have to act when it comes to their cybersecurity, but won’t know where to begin, or which actions are necessary. We want to show those customers that when they adopt one of our solutions, everything will be taken care of, 24/7.”

How did you get into contact with HSD, and why did you become a partner?

“HSD is definitely a recognizable name in the industry”, Abram states. “We were already involved with Digital Trust Centre, Brainport, you name it, HSD fits in there. Before we got in contact, we’d see your LinkedIn posts being shared as well. We had looked at partnership from a previous company, but at the time a partnership was difficult to realise. With tien security we come at it from a different angle.”

Curtis explains why tien security sees partnership of the cluster as a great step. “Firstly, we really want to strengthen our network. We see many interesting organisations around the campus that we could potentially work with. It looks like the perfect place to share knowledge and gain new knowledge as well.”

“It’s a give and take”, Abram adds. “I think we can strengthen your partner network while also helping ourselves. Our customers are not just SMEs, but MSPs as well. They might be interested in integrating our services and products into their portfolio – whitelabeled – so they can make use of our services under their own name. This is a great way to collaborate while focusing on the mission to help the Netherlands become more cyber resilient.”

Have you seen big changes in the way security is seen by SMEs over the last few years?

Some are more aware, while others still need convincing that it’s important to take care of your cybersecurity, Curtis states. “We see some companies have become more aware of the risks. There are those that have already taken out a cyber insurance because they see that only taking care of the technical side is not enough. When an incident occurs, it’s important to be covered financially as well.”

“Part of it is jargon as well”, Abram observes. “In the security world we are used to a lot of words that a typical entrepreneur won’t know what to make of. For them the main question is whether their security is taken care of, in terms of both monitoring and insurance. Organisations we work with need to know that everything is up to standards, and that if anything were to happen, they will be insured and assisted.”

What are tien security’s ambitions for the coming years?

The company looks forward to strong growth, and fruitful collaboration within the security cluster, Abram explains. “Our goal is to let technology work for us, and in doing so, we will be able to help many more customers than one might expect. Automating cyber defense, being smart about it, and combining that with providing good service, that’s how we believe you can best help SMEs. We want to do away with the idea of security consultancy taking endless hours at expensive rates, we want to work smart and pragmatically.”  

“It’s what SMEs and entrepreneurs want themselves as well,” Curtis adds. “If you have a certain number of employees, you just want to know the cost of being covered, and if need be, to be covered the next day. That’s how fast we can work with our clients.” Aside from this, tien security also looks forward to meeting other HSD partners at events around the Campus, he noted. “We already work with some great partners that are also HSD partners. We’re very curious about the companies we haven’t met yet, and how we can collaborate to strengthen cyber resilience across the board.”