Google LLC and CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. are linking together half a dozen of their cybersecurity tools to make it easier for information technology teams to spot malware in their companies’ systems.

The companies detailed the collaboration today.

Publicly traded CrowdStrike’s flagship product is a platform called Falcon that enterprises use to protect systems such as servers and employee devices. Falcon, thanks to its large installed base, tracks about 5 trillion security data points per week. The platform can now send security information from a company’s environment to Google’s cloud-based Chronicle analytics platform, which allows cybersecurity experts to sift through the information for signs of a breach.

Chronicle is capable of storing and analyzing petabytes of security data at once. That’s useful because hacking attempts are sometimes only detected months after the fact, which means that investigating them requires holding onto large amounts of historical security data. Adding in information from Falcon to the mix should allow CrowdStrike customers to perform more comprehensive threat analyses in Chronicle. 

Information from Falcon will also be available inside Google Cloud’s Security Command Center service. Whereas Chronicle is designed for investigating complex threats, Security Command Center focuses more on helping IT teams quickly detect issues that come up as part of day-to-day operations. When Falcon spots a potential threat, it can now surface the item inside the service’s interface to save users the hassle of switching tabs. 

Google and CrowdStrike’s collaboration places a particular emphasis on securing public cloud environments. According to the companies, they will work together to make it easier to set up Falcon inside Google Cloud virtual machines.

Falcon uses software sensors to collect security data from virtual machines. Those sensors, the companies say, will soon be faster to install thanks to an upcoming integration with Google Cloud’s Security Agent Deployment tool, which the search giant has created specifically to speed up the installation of breach prevention products.

A key common theme of the product updates is that they aim to save time for cybersecurity professionals. Cybersecurity professionals are in short supply and some companies have had to make do with smaller network protection teams as a result. In response, software makers have been building productivity-boosting features to help network protection teams use their limited resources more efficiently and thereby better detect threats.

The other products Google and CrowdStrike are prioritizing as part of the collaboration are BeyondCorp Enterprise, Google Workspace and VirusTotal. VirusTotal is a service operated by Google that companies can use to scan files for malware. It will soon be available as an add-on to Falcon so administrators can scan files from the native interface. BeyondCorp Enterprise and Google Workspace, in turn, are receiving an integration that will make it easier to set up access controls for limiting who can interact with what part of a company’s deployment. 

“Security issues continue to disrupt enterprises across all industries, prompting many to modernize their security plans and operations with the cloud. At the same time, attackers continue to become more sophisticated and evolve attack methods,” said Sunil Potti, vice president and general manager Google Cloud Security. “Our expanded partnership with CrowdStrike helps our joint customers make the most of their security investments.”

Image: Google