| ARICOMA Group acquires Musala Soft | | https://aec.cz/en/news/Pages/aricoma-group-acquires-musala-soft.aspx | ARICOMA Group acquires Musala Soft | <p>ARICOMA Group and Musala Soft announce a deal for the acquisition of Musala Soft. ARICOMA Group, part of KKCG is a fast-growing European NextGen IT services provider. This investment is another key step in ARICOMA’s strategic development.</p><p>With Musala Soft, the ARICOMA Group will comprise of 10 technology companies with a consolidated turnover exceeding EUR 400 million, an EBITDA of EUR 39 million and 4000+ professionals.</p><p>“With Musala Soft onboard, we are becoming a leader in custom software development from South-eastern Europe. Musala is a natural fit for ARICOMA on our path to become a European leader, and we’re excited to work together. Its innovative culture and amazing people will further bolster our internal talent as well as market potential. The leadership team has a legacy of growing the business with client focus and a problem-solving approach. We believe that Musala will thrive as part of ARICOMA and we will jointly accelerate our long-term growth and value creation plans,” says Ludovic Gaudé, CEO of ARICOMA Digital.</p><p>“We are eager to enter a new faster chapter of our development by joining forces with ARICOMA and KKCG. The synergy with both the overlapping and complementary client base and expertise of ARICOMA gives us confidence and fuels the exciting journey ahead. Of course, we will also keep and expand together our dedication to the development of the IT community, business climate, IT education, science, innovation, and inspiring young talent,” says Elena Marinova, President and Chair of the Board of Musala Soft.</p><p>“I am delighted that we managed to reach an agreement with Musala. This is our second acquisition this year and it fits in line with our strategy to turn ARICOMA into a significant player in Europe. Musala has an exciting portfolio of clients, which will boost our Telco, Finance, and Automotive verticals. Even in these challenging times the IT sector continues to grow and increase in relevance and we remain optimistic about the industry’s potential in the long-term,” adds Michal Tománek, Investment Director at KKCG, the investment company behind ARICOMA Group.</p><p>The deal signed by the owners of Musala Soft and the ARICOMA Group is for the sale of a 100% share in the company. The full Musala Soft management team will stay on board in the long term and will actively participate in building ARICOMA’s future. The transaction is still subject to approval of the respective anti-monopoly offices and is expected to close in Q4 this year.</p><p>CMS Cameron McKenna acted as Legal Advisor and Deepak Bhandari from Marylebone Capital Advisors Private Limited acted as Financial Advisor to Musala Soft.</p><p> </p><p>
<img src="/cz/PublishingImages/news/loga/musala-soft-logo.png" data-themekey="#" alt="Musala Soft" style="margin:5px;" />
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<a href="https://www.musala.com/" target="_blank">Musala Soft</a> builds future generation software products and enterprise solutions for impactful organizations around the globe. The company is provider of high-end software engineering services in AI, Big Data, IoT, Analytics, Cloud, and Integration. Musala Soft professional team covers with expertise and creativity all elements of the software life cycle. Musala Soft clients are challenging, innovative and trendsetting enterprises in IT, Telecom, Finance and Automotive devoted to stability and growth, daring to pioneer new ideas and build the future. Among them are IBM, SAP, VMware, Deutsche Telecom, A1, Generali, Canaccord, Experian, Procredit Bank, PTV Group, EDAG, Bosch, KPMG, PerkinElmer, Siemens Energy, and the Financial Times. Musala Soft was founded in 2000 and has its headquarters in Bulgaria with a team of 750 employees from 10+ nationalities located in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Egypt, Albania and Kosovo. Musala Soft is the proud winner of multiple national and international honours and recognitions in Talent Development, Science and Innovation, Quality of Software Solutions, Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility.</p><p> </p><p>
<img src="/cz/PublishingImages/news/loga/aricoma-group-purple-50px.jpg" data-themekey="#" alt="Aricoma Group" style="margin:5px;" />
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<a href="https://aricomagroup.com/en/" target="_blank">ARICOMA Group</a> is a leading Central European IT Services provider with a significant Scandinavian presence providing services to 1000+ clients in 15 markets from its 8 Europe-based delivery centres. ARICOMA’s focus is to help both private- and public-sector clients navigate the ever-changing demands, risks, and business opportunities. Through its portfolio companies, it provides end-to-end digital transformation solutions, including UX design and consulting, custom software development, IT infrastructure and IT operations management, cloud operations, and cloud security services. Notable members of ARICOMA Group include Sweden- and CEE-based custom software developer Seavus, Sweden-based software developer Stratiteq, Czechia- and Slovakia-based system integrator AUTOCONT, custom software developers Cleverlance Enterprise Solutions and KOMIX, cybersecurity services specialist AEC, and government digital transformation specialist CESEA.</p><p> </p><p>
<img src="/cz/PublishingImages/news/loga/KKCG-logo-35px.jpg" data-themekey="#" alt="KKCG" style="margin:5px;" />
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<a href="https://aricomagroup.com/en/" target="_blank">KKCG</a>, managed by Karel Komárek, one of the most successful Czech entrepreneurs, is an international investment company with a total value of more than €9bn. KKCG develops its business activities in thirty-three countries around the world and its key fields include the entertainment industry, the energy industry, IT technologies, and real estate. It holds shares in many leading companies, including Allwyn (lotteries and gaming), ARICOMA Group (IT), MND Group (energy), KKCG Real Estate Group, and Springtide Ventures (venture capital fund with investments in European and Israeli IT start-ups).<br>
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Karel Komárek Family Foundation supports a diverse range of projects, such as the construction of the REACH - a new building in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, support for Ukrainian people right after the war broke out and Ukrainian refugees in the Czech Republic, the restoration of South Moravia, which was damaged by the tornado in 2021, and many Czech cultural heritage projects, including the flagship Dvořák Prague International Music festival.
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| We are in the TOP 10 teams in the world of the Capture the Flag competition! | | https://aec.cz/en/news/Pages/we-are-in-the-top-10-teams-in-the-world-of-the-capture-the-flag-competition.aspx | We are in the TOP 10 teams in the world of the Capture the Flag competition! | <h3>The AEC team, made up of Erik Šabík, Miriam Gáliková, Lukáš Bendík, Petr Řepa and Michal Kališ, finished in a fantastic ninth place in the world-renowned Tenable CTF competition. Our five colleagues, who joined forces as Želvy Ninja (Ninja Turtles), thus considerably improved on last year’s result, which was still an impressive twenty-first place. </h3><div>
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</div><div>Five hectic days, 1 357 registered teams, but just a handful of truly successful ones. That was this year’s international Capture the Flag competition organised by Tenable, the American provider of top-class vulnerability monitoring solutions and also one of our company’s major partners. </div><div><br></div><div>
This year, our artists Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello and Master Splinter relentlessly fought their way through the competition to finish amongst the top ten very best teams from all over the world. From 9 to 13 June 2022 each of them completed a whole range of tasks focused on IT security to win as many points as possible for their team. </div><div><br></div><div>
“<a href="https://tenable.ctfd.io/scoreboard">This year’s CTF was really interesting, especially as it emphasised dealing with attacks from the real world</a>,” said Erik Šabík, adding: “Tenable is a particularly renowned company in the security world, and just because it faces the highest level of current threats on a daily basis, we could expect this competition to be a major challenge.” </div><div><br></div><div>
The Ninja Turtles team was made up of five AEC pen testers, each specialising in a slightly different area, which proved to be an advantage in tasks that covered a broader scope. Erik, Miriam, Lukáš, Petr and Michal first focused on the areas that interest each of them the most, and completed tasks in which they excelled. </div><div><br></div><div>
“We worked together to try to find solutions to the most difficult tasks,” explained Erik Šabík. He said that, paradoxically, the team struggled most with the lesser-scoring, tasks, which were apparently easier. Yet they coped very well with the toughest assignments. </div><div><br></div><div>
The tasks in this year’s Tenable Capture the Flag included web applications, reverse engineering, cryptography, steganography and forensic analysis. There were a couple of tasks focusing on the Tenable Nessus scanner, as well as on analytical thinking. </div><div><br></div><div>In the opinion of our successful colleagues, what helped them the most in this year’s achievement was the skilled make-up of the team and the fact that the hardest tasks they had to deal with were not so different from what they face in their work for AEC.
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| Security 2022 Conference: the online world is getting hotter, risks are escalating | | https://aec.cz/en/news/Pages/security-2022-conference-the-online-world-is-getting-hotter-risks-are-escalating.aspx | Security 2022 Conference: the online world is getting hotter, risks are escalating | <p>
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<span style="color:#6773b6;">Covid-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have changed the IT environment to such an extent that it will never be the same. What risks do we face and what scenarios can we expect to unfold? Participants at the Security 2022 conference on international cybersecurity also pondered this.</span></strong> </p><p>After a two-year hiatus enforced upon us by the coronavirus pandemic, we managed to organize the 28th Security 2022 conference. This is the largest independent event in the Czech Republic to focus on cybersecurity and took place on Tuesday 7 June in Prague.</p><p>“We are glad that this year we managed to successfully build on previous years,” said Igor Čech, marketing manager at AEC, adding: “We are pleased that we could once again meet everyone in person, and I really appreciate the big turnout.”</p><p style="text-align:center;"><img class="maxWidthImage" src="/cz/PublishingImages/news/2022/security-2022-063.jpg" data-themekey="#" alt="" style="margin:5px;width:658px;" /><br><br></p><p>The lectures, covering the most topical cyber security issues of the day, were divided into two parallel sessions. They were attended by 580 registered participants. This year’s event was dominated by topics related to Covid-19 and, in particular, the war in Ukraine.</p><p>This conflict changes many of the rules. Global development scenarios are unclear, the business environment is unstable, and governments are increasingly willing to resort to tough regulations. The time when everyone did business with everyone else is over, and corporate leaders are being forced to face risks that are escalating in ways never before imagined.</p><p>In their presentation, the experts from Gartner more or less outlined this framework of current events and then proposed four possible scenarios for future developments in political and economic relations. Unfortunately, none of them even remotely envisages a return to the stability of previous years.</p><p>The packed hall also listened to our colleague, Ukrainian security specialist Yehor Safon, who filled us in on the little-known circumstances of the cyber war between Russia and Ukraine, described sophisticated attack vectors, as well as those defence techniques that have proven to be effective.</p><p style="text-align:center;"><img class="maxWidthImage" src="/cz/PublishingImages/news/2022/security-2022-060.jpg" data-themekey="#" alt="" style="margin:5px;width:658px;" /><br><br></p><p>This year, 27 speakers from the Czech Republic and abroad presented their papers. The presentation by Israeli expert Paul Moskovich, who vividly described the tale of an unprepared company that failed to cope with the fatal consequences of a cyber-attack, received well-deserved attention.</p><p>So, which lectures did the Security 2022 conference participants vote for most? Firstly, the one by cryptologist Tomáš Rosa from Raiffeisenbank about the fundamental weaknesses in the security of the eRouška app, where it turned out that not all aspects played in our, the users’, favour.</p><p style="text-align:center;">
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</p><p>Then there was the presentation by Robert Šuman, in which the head of ESET's research laboratory gave a detailed mapping and a timeline of the activities of three major pro-Russian hacker groups and their role in attacks on Ukrainian IT infrastructure.</p><p>Last but not least, the presentation by security specialists Lukáš Renec and Katarína Galanská from our company grabbed the audience’s attention. In their presentation, they gave listeners an entertaining insight into the preparation and course of a simulated social engineering attack on large banking houses in the Czech Republic.</p><p>“We are delighted with the evaluation and the feedback, it is clear that the conference met its purpose,” said Igor Čech and concluded, “The quality of the lectures, the interesting discussions and the overall friendly and shared atmosphere all contributed greatly to this. We would like to focus even more on networking in the future.”<br></p><p style="text-align:center;">
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