Cisco and IBM join forces to tackle cybercrime

Cisco security solutions will integrate with IBM’s QRadar to protect organizations across networks, endpoints and Cloud. Customers will also benefit from the scale of IBM Global Services support of Cisco products in their Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) offerings, the companies claimed. The collaboration also establishes a new relationship between the IBM X-Force and Cisco Talos security research teams, who will begin collaborating on threat intelligence research and co-ordinating on major cybersecurity incidents.

“In cybersecurity, taking a data-driven approach is the only way to stay ahead of the threats impacting your business,” said Bill Heinrich, chief information security director, BNSF Railway. “Cisco and IBM working together greatly increases our team’s ability to focus on stopping threats versus making disconnected systems work with each other. This more open and collaborative approach is an important step for the industry and our ability to defend ourselves against cybercrime.”

As part of the collaboration, Cisco will build new applications designed to help security teams understand and respond to advanced threats, which will be available on the IBM Security App Exchange. These will “help clients identify and remediate incidents more effectively” when working with Cisco’s Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW), Next-Generation Intrusion Protection System (NGIPS) and Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) and Threat Grid, according to Cisco.

In addition, IBM’s Resilient Incident Response Platform (IRP) will integrate with Cisco’s Threat Grid to provide security teams with insights needed to respond to incidents faster. For example, analysts in the IRP can look up indicators of compromise with Cisco Threat Grid’s threat intelligence, or detonate suspected malware with its sandbox technology.

“Cybercrime is expected to cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021. This is why IBM has been a proponent of open collaboration and threat sharing in cybersecurity to change the economics for criminals,” said Marc van Zadelhoff, general manager, IBM Security. “With Cisco joining our immune system of defense, joint customers will greatly expand their ability to enhance their use of cognitive technologies like IBM Watson for Cyber Security. Also, having our IBM X-Force and Cisco Talos teams collaborating is a tremendous advantage for the good guys in the fight against cybercrime.”

For joint customers, IBM will deliver an integration between X-Force Exchange and Cisco’s Threat Grid. This integration greatly expands the historical and real-time threat intelligence that security analysts can correlate for deeper insights. For example, Cisco and IBM recently shared threat intelligence as part of the recent WannaCry ransomware attacks. The teams coordinated their response and researchers exchanged insights into how the malware was spreading. They say they continue to collaborate on the investigation.