Cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks and IBM announced a broad-reaching partnership to deliver AI-powered security outcomes for customers.
The announcement, they noted, is a testament to their commitment to one another’s platforms and innovative capabilities. Palo Alto and IBM are aiming to help streamline and transform security operations, stop threats at scale and accelerate incident remediation with an AI-powered approach.
As part of the expanded partnership, Palo Alto agreed to acquire IBM’s QRadar SaaS assets, including QRadar intellectual property rights.
Upon closing, the companies will migrate QRadar SaaS clients to Cortex XSIAM, a next-gen SOC platform with advanced AI-powered threat protection, supported by 3,000 out-of-the-box detectors. On-premise QRadar clients that wish to remain on QRadar, on-prem, will continue to receive IBM features and support, including security, usability and critical bug fixes, as well as updates to existing connectors and the ability to expand consumption.
For QRadar SaaS and on-prem clients migrating to Cortex XSIAM, the companies and their ecosystem of business partners will collaborate to support a smooth transfer, with IBM and Palo Alto offering no-cost migration services to qualified customers.
IBM will also receive incremental payments from Palo Alto Networks for QRadar on-prem clients that choose to migrate to the Cortex XSIAM platform.
“The security industry is at an inflection point where AI will transform businesses and deliver outcomes not seen before,” said Palo Alto Networks chairman and CEO, Nikesh Arora. “It’s a moment to accelerate growth and innovation. Together with IBM, we will capitalize on this trend, combining our leading security solutions with IBM’s pioneering watsonx AI platform and premier services to drive the future of security platformization with complete, AI-powered, secure-by-design offerings.”
“Strategic partnerships like the one we’re announcing today with Palo Alto Networks bring with them significant benefits across the industry,” added Arvind Krishna, IBM chairman and CEO. “Advanced threat protection and automation, underpinned by Cortex XSIAM and watsonx, and coupled with IBM Consulting, will speed client and partner adoption of next-generation security operations. We’ll deliver these capabilities with Palo Alto Networks, and accelerate our security investments and innovation in areas like data security and identity and access management. These are critical offerings that our clients need when protecting their data, hybrid cloud environments, AI models and applications. We are delighted to be partnering with the Palo Alto Networks team and we are excited about the future of AI-powered cybersecurity innovation.”
IBM Consulting will be a preferred MSSP for current and future Palo Alto Networks customers. In addition, a joint SOC will feature a managed SOC, and the companies will also establish a joint cyber range to offer immersive experiences for customers to further understand the value of Palo Alto Networks security products. IBM’s experts with global, regional and local delivery capabilities will use watsonx, IT automation and threat intelligence to enhance advisory efforts and drive growth and adoption of Palo Alto security platforms.
As IBM’s cybersecurity partner of choice, Palo Alto’s leading cybersecurity solutions will be accessible in IBM’s Consulting Advantage AI services platform, including the building of assets and repeatable methods to support scale. Together, Palo Alto Networks and IBM will accelerate consultant training, enabling more than 1,000 IBM experts to provide optimal migration, deployment and adoption services across Palo Alto Networks platforms. IBM will also build industry-vertical capabilities on top of Cortex XSIAM, leveraging watsonx. Consistent with IBM partnerships with other major technology companies, IBM anticipates that this alliance will drive a significant security book of business with Palo Alto Networks.
IBM intends to expand its deployment of Palo Alto Networks AI-powered security platforms internally, adopting Cortex XSIAM for next-gen security operations and Prisma SASE 3.0 for zero-trust network security to safeguard more than 250,000 of its global workforce. IBM’s adoption of security platformization is a marquee example of how customers can benefit from the streamlined operations of security products across the Palo Alto Networks portfolio.
Palo Alto Networks intends to integrate watsonx LLMs into Cortex XSIAM to drive additional automation capabilities, as well as leverage IBM’s watsonx to accelerate its roadmap to improve customer support outcomes. watsonx will help Palo Alto Networks proactively address known technical issues, create tailored self-service solutions, and boost overall agent productivity within Palo Alto Networks customer support operations. In addition, Palo Alto Networks plans to deploy other IBM software products to benefit from the latest innovations in cloud and automation.
Through this forward-looking collaboration, IBM will expand its relationship with PrismaCloud, the industry’s most comprehensive cloud native application protection platform (CNAPP). Prisma Cloud will expand its existing integrations with current and future IBM DevOps offerings, including cloud-native security built for Red Hat OpenShift and Ansible. IBM’s strength in DevOps, coupled with Palo Alto Networks cloud security expertise, will embolden “secure-by-design” DevSecOps capabilities for joint customers to help prevent insecure code from running in cloud workloads in production.
The transaction portion of this announcement is expected to close by the end of September 2024, subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions.
Click here (Palo Alto Networks) and here (IBM) for partner program opportunities.
