Data Residency, Control, and Processing within Germany and the EU in Accordance with Regulatory Requirements

Bitdefender, a European-based cybersecurity leader, has announced its strategic partnership with secunet, a company specialising in digital sovereignty and the protection of highly critical environments, such as government agencies. In Germany, Bitdefender now offers GravityZone, its unified platform for cybersecurity, risk-management and compliance, in the sovereign cloud of SysEleven (a secunet company). Customer and configuration data, security events and telemetry data are processed exclusively in the EU.

The partnership between Bitdefender and secunet supports companies of all sizes that must comply with strict criteria for data sovereignty. This is particularly relevant for industries such as financial services, healthcare, education, critical infrastructure, energy, manufacturing, and others.

In addition, the partnership optimizes Bitdefender’s channel ecosystem for cybersecurity offerings. It enables partners and managed service providers (MSPs) to use the GravityZone platform hosted in Germany in the SysEleven OpenStack Cloud to customers with high data sovereignty and compliance requirements and manage these environments on their behalf.

Digital Sovereignty Under Pressure

Recent discussions have highlighted that, under certain circumstances, U.S.-based companies may be required to comply with government requests for data access. This has created uncertainty among EU organizations that rely on cloud and software services hosted abroad. As a result, many European companies are prioritizing digital sovereignty initiatives, particularly when handling highly sensitive information such as security data.

With the secunet partnership, Bitdefender, as an EU-based company, can enable digital sovereignty without backdoors. The integration provides organizations with advanced cybersecurity capabilities to protect their operations and comply with strict EU and German regulations like NIS2, DORA, GDPR and ISO.

At the core of the initiative is Bitdefender GravityZone, a comprehensive unified security, risk analytics, and compliance platform hosted on the SysEleven OpenStack Cloud. The platform provides advanced endpoint protection (EPP), endpoint detection and response (EDR), extended detection and response (XDR), and cloud-native security, delivering end-to-end coverage across the entire attack chain while offering deep context for detections that seamlessly extend to Bitdefender Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services.

The Certified SysEleven OpenStack Cloud

The SysEleven OpenStack cloud provides a robust, secure, and scalable infrastructure designed specifically for organizations with critical IT and high compliance requirements. The Berlin-based cloud and managed Kubernetes specialist SysEleven is certified by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) according to ISO 27001 on the basis of IT-Grundschutz. This makes SysEleven one of only two sovereign cloud providers in Germany that are characterized by the triad of IT baseline protection, C5 attestation and ISO 27001 certification.

Hosting GravityZone in SysEleven’s certified cloud in Germany makes it possible to process and store GravityZone data such as endpoint security events/telemetry, detections and configuration data in the EU.

“Businesses across Europe need security solutions that deliver advanced threat prevention, protection, detection, and response without sacrificing data sovereignty,” said Andrei Florescu, president and general manager of Bitdefender Business Solutions Group. “The partnership with secunet offers just that, giving regulated industries the confidence to implement state-of-the-art cybersecurity while maintaining full control over how they store, process and secure their data. With GravityZone on the SysEleven OpenStack Cloud, customers know that their data stays within the EU. They can also more easily comply with regulations such as GDPR, NIS2, DORA, and other regulations.”

“With our secure and certified cloud infrastructure, we enable Bitdefender to deliver its proven cybersecurity platform seamlessly,” said Andreas Rückriegel, CEO SysEleven and vice president cloud at secunet. “This partnership represents a unique and necessary step toward strengthening digital resilience. By combining the technologies and expertise of two trusted European market leaders, we empower both businesses and public authorities to drive innovation while operating with the highest level of security and compliance.”

Source: BUSINESS WIRE