Symantec, a division of Broadcom Inc., today announced a new partnership with Google Cloud to embed generative artificial intelligence into the Symantec Security platform to allow customers to detect, understand and remediate cyberattacks more easily.

Under the partnership Symantec will leverage the Google Cloud Security AI Workbench and security-specific large language model Sec-PaLM 2–across its portfolio. The aim is to enable natural language interfaces and generate more comprehensive and easy-to-understand threat analyses. Built on Vertex AI, the Google Cloud Security AI Workbench leverages landscape visibility from Google Cloud and Mandiant to give defenders more natural, creative and effective ways to keep their organizations safe. 

The implementation within the Symantec Security platform will power summaries of complex incidents with alignment to the MITRE ATT&CK context. Doing so allows security operations center analysts of all levels to understand threats better and respond faster, delivering greater security and higher SOC productivity.

Symantec and Google Cloud’s collaboration is also focused on addressing the growing cybersecurity talent gap. Symantec argues that as enterprise attack surfaces expand and become more complex, companies are struggling to hire security analysts with deep expertise. Symantec products help compensate for this skills shortage by providing less experienced staff with assistive features that summarize threat information in natural language. They also provide more accessible ways to operate security products without the requirement to learn complicated syntax or other system features, Symantec said.

“Google Cloud and Symantec are working together to deliver AI-infused security that makes threat detection faster and more actionable for all levels of security analysts,” said Sunil Potti, general management and vice president of cloud security at Google Cloud. “Together, Google Cloud and Symantec are helping to optimize the effectiveness of security controls while removing the manual drudgery that slows implementation, policy tuning and response times.”

The initial rollout of the integration requires no update on products and processes and can be accessed via Symantec’s existing externally facing sites. As part of the partnership, Symantec is also now sharing query language samples with Google Cloud to help its Sec-PaLM 2 LLM better interact with its specific systems — resulting in improved workflows.

Phil Venables, chief information security officer for Google Cloud and vice president of Google LLC, spoke with theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s livestreaming studio last week, discussing how Google Cloud is harnessing AI to bolster cybersecurity.

In the interview, Venables noted how Google is committed to being both bold and responsible in its AI endeavors, encompassing various facets, including security, risk management, compliance and safety.

Image: Symantec