Dell, CrowdStrike, SecureWorks Forge Pact To Keep Endpoints Secure

Dell has teamed up with CrowdStrike and SecureWorks to provide endpoint protection, managed security and incident response around the company's laptops and desktops.

The joint offering is targeted at mid-market customers, state and local governments, and educational institutions that lack their own SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) platform and SOC (Security Operations Center), said Brett Hansen, VP and GM of Dell's client software and security solutions business. The offering will be sold by Dell's sales force as well as their channel partners, he said.

"Cybersecurity is the number one thing on most customers' minds," Hansen told CRN. "And CrowdStrike and SecureWorks are the best at what they do."

[Related: CrowdStrike Unveils Tiered Reseller Program With Big Discounts, MDF]

The partnership between Dell and CrowdStrike and Dell and SecureWorks is currently focused solely on licensing and go-to-market so that cybersecurity can be bundled into the initial device purchase, Hansen said. This will make things easier for clients with a dedicated budget spend, allowing them to receive support around the CrowdStrike and SecureWorks products from a single contact at Dell, he said.

Although no integration work exists between CrowdStrike and Dell today beyond testing agents on the Dell platform, the companies are exploring a roadmap of integrations at the firmware and system BIOS level, according to Matthew Polly, CrowdStrike's VP of worldwide business development and channels. This is the first time CrowdStrike has ever allowed another technology vendor sell its products, he said.

"This provides CrowdStrike with a great entry point into Dell's 50,000-plus accounts they sell to," Polly told CRN. "There are very few vendors in the IT market with the scale and reach of Dell."

Four different tiered offerings will be made available to Dell customers as part of the partnership. The base offering will bundle in CrowdStrike Falcon Prevent next-generation antivirus, and cost businesses between $20,000 and $30,000 annually, while the next tier will offer businesses both Falcon Prevent as well as Falcon Insight endpoint detection and response, which will cost roughly $60,000, Hansen said.

The next tier up additionally provides fully managed EDR from SecureWorks, and cost approximately $70,000 annually, according to Hansen. And the top tier adds in an incident response retainer from SecureWorks, on which Hansen said pricing can vary based on the number of hours requested.

"Having a vendor like Dell decide they're going to go to market with CrowdStrike as their primary endpoint protection provider is a strong endorsement of our technology and the capabilities we have to protect customers," Polly said.

CrowdStrike and SecureWorks have combined APIs to open the data up for SecureWorks, Polly said, making it possible for them to provide managed endpoint detection and response. Specifically, Polly said integrating CrowdStrike Falcon data into the SecureWorks' Red Cloak analytics platform has made it possible for threat intelligence data from both companies to be fused into a single offering.

The efficacy, growth, and third-party testing results from CrowdStrike made them the most appealing endpoint detection and response partner for this offering, according to Wendy Thomas, SecureWorks SVP of business and product strategy.

CrowdStrike's platform also works well at supporting SecureWorks's integrated managed services and incident response engagements, Thomas said, as well as telemetry and threat intelligence integrations. The need to provide secure protection in a complex environment caused SecureWorks to shy away from an endpoint security partner whose foundational technology is anti-virus, Thomas said.

The Dell sales force is a tremendous resource for the mid-market, according to Thomas, which continues to be underserved due to the perception that security tools are intended for larger and more sophisticated businesses. Although Secureworks completed an initial public offering in 2016, it continues to be majority owned by Dell Technologies.

"For SecureWorks, this is a great example of truly becoming more integrated with Dell," Thomas said.

All told, Hansen said endpoints remain the most vulnerable part of an organization's security architecture and infrastructure due to the multitude of operating systems, varying ages of endpoint devices, and the different users associated with each endpoint device.

"Endpoint security is a big challenge," Hansen said. "The better prepared you are with the right tools and expertise, the easier it will be."