Google LLC’s cybersecurity division Chronicle is imploding amid staff departures and uncertainty over its future, according to a report published today by Motherboard.

Chronicle was announced as an Alphabet Inc. moonshot spinoff in January 2018, finally launching Backstory, its first custom in-house built product, in March. Chronicle launched with a promise that it was aiming to simplify the lives of cybersecurity and information technology professionals. Backstory was claimed to be the “first global security telemetry platform designed for a world that thinks in petabytes.”

There were skeptics at the time, including Exabeam Inc. Chief Executive Officer Nir Polak. “The premise that storing and processing large amounts of security data benefits security teams is true, but it’s not enough to simply throw large amounts of storage and compute at the problem,” he wrote. “Sophisticated, behavior-based analytics are needed on top of the log and telemetry data, an innovative approach that combines unlimited storage with an analytics engine.”

Although it landed Siemens AG as a client in May, the first sign of trouble at Chronicle came June 27 when it was announced that Chronicle would be absorbed into Google Cloud.

Fast forward to November and if Motherboard is to be believed, “Chronicle is dead and Google killed it.” The report, quoting unnamed employees, claims that some feel that Chronicle management has abandoned and betrayed the original vision.

Chronicle CEO Stephen Gillet is said to have left to work at another part of Google, while Chief Security Officer Mike Wiacek has left Google altogether. Chief Technology Officer Will Robison is said to be departing Chronicle shortly.

“People keep quitting,” an employee told Motherboard. “Sales doesn’t know what to do since there’s no real product roadmap anymore. Engineering is depressed for the same reason, folks have been finding jobs at startups or transferring to other parts of Google.”

Google has yet to comment on the report.

Motherboard claims aside, Chronicle is not dead quite yet. One employee in the report noted that new products are on the horizon and that BlackBerry Cylance had announced its own product integration with Backstory last month. For a division supposedly dead, it also continues to be active on social media with recent blog posts as well as Twitter announcements.

Visit with Chronicle at Google Cloud Next ’19 UK. Register today for our exclusive event on November 19 at Churchill War Rooms. Meet with Google Cloud Security leadership, do a wine tasting with master sommeliers, and see a demo of our Backstory platform. https://t.co/xcXZLkfE3P pic.twitter.com/FDmv2dcBw4

— Chronicle (@chroniclesec) November 7, 2019

Image: Google