BAE Systems Detica and Vodafone have signed a five-year strategic collaboration agreement to develop mobile cyber security services.

Vodafone has selected Detica, which was acquired by BAE Systems in 2008, to develop a cloud-based mobile security platform, that the mobile telco will offer to its 1,500 enterprise clients.

The new service, called Vodafone Mobile Threat Manager, "scan[s] traffic to and from a company’s mobile devices in order to safeguard against malicious attacks and block inappropriate content, without impacting on device performance," Detica said in a statement.

At the same time, BAE Systems has selected Vodafone as its "supplier of mobile communications" outside the US.

"Vodafone will provide services to our 35,000 UK employees from July 2013, with a view to expanding these services across our global workforce over the term of the contract," the company said.

The two companies are also in discussion to deploy unified communications technology.

“This partnership is unique, not only in bringing together a defence and security player with a major communications provider, but also in its ability to help global enterprises realise their ambitions around leveraging the future of communications technologies in a secure manner," said Ian King CEO BAE Systems. "These technologies are subject to the vulnerabilities of cyber space and we can provide the mobile marketplace with protection against today’s threats and the advanced threats of the future.”

Vodafone is already a Detica customer. According to a case study on the latter's website, Detica help optimise the performance Vodafone's mobile website.