LG Uplus收购MDR安全公司Fago Networks

LG Uplus (032640.KS) has acquired a security specialist company and is aggressively expanding its business-to-business (B2B) security business. It is the company's first merger and acquisition (M&A) in seven years since LG Hellovision in 2019, and the first since President Hong Beom-sik took office. The strategy is to internalize the capability to protect data, network, and cloud infrastructure as a whole, and to cultivate an integrated security business as a new growth engine.
LG Uplus said on the 4th that it had acquired Fago Networks, a domestic managed detection and response (MDR) security specialist. The acquisition scale and stake were not disclosed. MDR is a service that monitors a company's security environment 24 hours a day to detect, analyze, and respond to cyber threats. It helps companies operate a professional security system without having to expand their own security personnel on a large scale. Fago Networks provides MDR services to various industries including finance, manufacturing, and information technology (IT), based on its self-developed security platform "DeepACT." Beyond the domestic market, it has also expanded into seven Southeast Asian countries.
This M&A is seen as a move to enhance customer trust based on security while securing a new growth engine in the B2B market. Since taking office, President Hong Beom-sik has presented security, quality, and safety as the company's three core fundamentals, emphasizing growth based on customer trust. At MWC26 held this year, he also unveiled the "Secure AI" strategy to strengthen security competitiveness across AI services, data, and infrastructure.
LG Uplus plans to combine Fago Networks' MDR capabilities with its existing security services to build an integrated security system covering authentication, network, monitoring, and threat response. The plan is to add MDR to its currently offered security monitoring service "U+ Premium Security Monitoring," its post-quantum cryptography (PQC)-based integrated authentication service "AlphaKey," and its cloud-based security service "U+SASE," thereby supporting the entire process from security system construction to operation and threat response.
Behind President Hong's choice of a security company as his first M&A target after taking office is the market's high growth potential. According to overseas market research firm DeepMarket Insight, the global cybersecurity market is expected to grow from $260.6 billion (about 373 trillion won) in 2025 to $916.9 billion in 2034. Over the same period, the domestic market is also expected to grow from $2.89 billion to $9.89 billion, recording an average annual growth rate of 14.7%.
As hacking incidents targeting the telecommunications industry occurred one after another last year, mobile carriers' investment in information protection is also expanding. According to the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) information protection disclosure portal, the three mobile carriers' information protection investment increased by about 73% from a total of 194 billion won in 2021 to 335.3 billion won in 2025. Mid- to long-term investment plans are also following one after another. SK Telecom has decided to invest 700 billion won over five years, and KT 1 trillion won over five years, in the information protection field. LG Uplus has also announced a plan to inject about 700 billion won over the next five years.
This M&A also aligns with the "full-stack" strategy of global tech companies that are vertically integrating their business areas from AI to cloud and security. Google completed its acquisition of Israeli security company Wiz in March this year, strengthening its AI and cloud security capabilities. Cisco, a powerhouse in the network field, is also broadening its business scope by unveiling security-specialized AI technology after acquiring security company Splunk. This is because companies are demanding data protection, threat detection, and security operation services together as they adopt AI. An industry official in the security sector said, "As generative AI including ChatGPT develops rapidly, concerns about cyberattacks that exploit it are also growing," adding, "As demand for integrated AI security technology among companies increases, tech companies' entry into the security market will also follow one after another."