Accenture Doubles Down On Google Cloud Security With New Managed Service
The managed XDR service will leverage brand-new generative AI capabilities from Google Cloud, along with Chronicle Security Operations and Mandiant threat intelligence, the IT consulting giant told CRN.
Paolo Dal Cin, global head of Accenture Security
Accenture and Google Cloud announced a major expansion of their cybersecurity partnership Monday, with the debut of a new managed service from the IT consulting giant powered by security operations tools and brand-new generative AI technology from Google, as well as Mandiant threat intelligence.
The Accenture Managed XDR (Extended Detection and Response) service provides customers with enhanced cyber defense through correlation of data sources across an organization’s environments and productivity enhancements through the use of generative AI, ultimately helping to thwart even sophisticated attacks more quickly, the company said.
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Accenture and Google Cloud announced the expanded partnership in connection with RSA Conference 2023, the major cybersecurity industry summit that kicked off Monday in San Francisco.
The partnership with Google Cloud will include providing newly unveiled generative AI technology to help power the Accenture service, which “will be groundbreaking,” said Paolo Dal Cin, global head of Accenture Security, in an interview with CRN.
The move ultimately holds the promise of “changing the industry and also changing the effectiveness of how we can help clients to have better cyber resilience,” he said.
The technology includes a new security-specific large language model (LLM) from Google, Sec-PaLM, and a set of tools built upon the LLM, Google Cloud Security AI Workbench. Accenture’s Managed XDR service leverages Security AI Workbench to enable training of the model from its own data sources and from customer sources, as well. That allows security analysts to tap into generative AI functionality that can access the most relevant data for protecting each customer, Accenture and Google Cloud executives told CRN.
The Accenture partnership is a chief example of how Google Cloud is working to “democratize access” to security-focused generative AI in tandem with its partners, said Sunil Potti, vice president and general manager for Google Cloud’s security business.
Google Cloud is doing so “with partners like Accenture to begin with, that have the vast amount of data to build that synergy,” Potti told CRN.
Taking that approach with generative AI “is how you actually bring step-function value to the security ecosystem, versus just [offering] a chat interface,” he said.
The Accenture Managed XDR service is also built on the cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM) platform from Google Cloud, Chronicle Security Operations, and leverages threat intelligence from Google Cloud-owned Mandiant.
The Security AI Workbench, which Google Cloud announced Monday, provides Accenture’s security analysts with improved productivity and faster access to Mandiant threat intelligence, which is embedded in the offering and can be leveraged through the generative AI interface, according to the companies.
As an example, the system might enable an analyst to more quickly determine — in part through using the embedded threat intelligence — that certain findings in an environment appear to represent a novel pattern of activity, Potti said.
The use of the generative AI technology should enable Accenture’s Managed XDR service to be faster and more effective at catching threats on behalf of customers, Accenture and Google Cloud said.
The Accenture Managed XDR service has been in preview with several customers since January, including real estate firm Lendlease, according to Dal Cin.
Accenture, No. 1 on CRN’s Solution Provider 500, expects to see strong demand from customers for the service going forward, due to the fact that “this is something that is not really available in the market,” he said.