Colorado-based root9B, a high-ranking cybersecurity firm formed with the goal of preventing a “Cyber 9/11,” has announced plans to expand in San Antonio.
“We look forward to being active participants in the community, and we will do our part to assist in the growth of cybersecurity in this emerging tech hub,” root9B CEO Eric Hipkins said.
Mike Morris, the company’s chief technology officer, on Friday told the San Antonio Express-News new government contracts were prompting the expansion from existing operations in the San Antonio Technology Center.
“We expect that there will be significant growth in the San Antonio area,” he said.
The new office in the Tower Life building will employ about 15 cyber developers, reverse engineers, and operations and threat analysts, Morris said. It will feature the company’s second adversary pursuit center, which is a base for manned cyber defense operations.
“That’s pretty big,” he said. “We stick a human in the loop to supplement the already existing security products and search inside of the client’s network for adversaries.”
The name 9B in hexadecimal math translates to 9/11, with “root” being the highest level of access on a machine, Morris said, explaining how the company’s moniker evokes the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“We wanted to be the organization that could be a fusion center that essentially could provide collaboration capabilities amongst commercial industry and government,” he said, “to be able to prevent a cyber 9/11 from happening.”
Since then, the company has built a client base that ranges from financial firms to the U.S. government. It provides both security monitoring and training, with personnel from the 24th Air Force’s cyber command among its students. The company was ranked in the top 50 of the Cybersecurity 500,, a directory of cybersecurity companies to watch in 2015.
Mario Hernandez, president of the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation, said root9B’s expansion was a “market-driven decision” that did not require tax or other incentives.
“In our marketplace here, there’s a lot of opportunity,” he said. “When you think about a company that’s going to provide more remote security services as well as providing training in the area of cybersecurity, this is a very logical location.”
As in other business sectors, tech development spurs more tech development, and municipal as well as business leaders have said San Antonio’s quest to become “Cyber City USA” will happen largely with smaller companies establishing a base here and larger companies expanding operations here.
“It is a system and a sector that small business thrives in,” Hernandez said. “Most of the operations are going to be just a few dozen employees. There’s not a real need to have facilities that are hundreds of employees. So that’s the pattern.”
From Hipkins down, root9B’s staff is made up of former Department of Defense personnel, and San Antonio’s strong military sector makes the company a natural fit, Morris said.
“We have the highest organizational concentration of senior cybersecurity operators that come out of the Department of Defense,” he said. “In fact, the entire company has probably been through San Antonio in one form or fashion during their military of government careers.”
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