Cohesity launches Data Security Alliance

The Data Security Alliance combines best-in-class solutions from industry leading cybersecurity and services companies with exceptional data security and management expertise from Cohesity. Partners in the ecosystem include: BigID, Cisco, CrowdStrike, CyberArk, Okta, Palo Alto Networks, Securonix, Splunk, and Tenable, with new security advisory relationships with Mandiant and PwC. 

Security complexities cannot be solved by one vendor alone. According to research commissioned by Cohesity, nearly half of organisations (47%) were hit by ransomware attacks in the first half of 2022. 

When an organisation is the victim of an attack, companies want to detect and stop the attack as soon as possible, avoid paying the ransom, and if necessary, recover core business operations as quickly as possible. To achieve these goals requires close collaboration and integration of security and data management solutions and services.  

This new Data Security Alliance collectively brings together the boldest solutions and the brightest minds in security to provide customers with a comprehensive approach that integrates data protection and resilience into an end-to-end security strategy. This strategy starts at prevention, extends to early detection and protection and also includes rapid recovery -- critical in the event of a cyberattack.

“Today’s non-stop and increasingly sophisticated cyber threats require an all-hands-on-deck approach. It’s not the responsibility of one vendor to solve all cybersecurity challenges, it takes a village to fight the bad guys. That’s why, out of the gate, we’re starting with multiple best-of-breed security partners, with tens of billions in market cap, who are serving thousands of customers globally,” said Sanjay Poonen, CEO and president, Cohesity. 

“As a leader in data security and management, we are partnering with these industry heavyweights so they can leverage our platform, the Cohesity Data Cloud, to help customers easily integrate data security and resilience into their overall security strategy. This not only helps enterprises better protect against the threat of cyberattacks but brings together CIOs and CISOs to the collaboration table to fight cybercrime in ways not seen before in our industry,” Poonen added.

“We at CrowdStrike believe frictionless data security is critical to drive business value for our customers. We continuously work to ensure that organisations with their endpoints, workloads and users continue to operate without obstacles, while data is continuously secured against breaches and insider threats, including ransomware exfiltration,” said Michael Rogers, vice president of global alliances at CrowdStrike. “We’re pleased to join this alliance and team up with Cohesity to help organisations strengthen their cyber resilience, in the face of evolving sophisticated adversaries.” 

“To any organisation hit by a cyberattack, backup environments must be free of security risks – the last thing an organisation needs in an emergency situation is to introduce new risk,” said Ray Komar, vice president of technical alliances, Tenable. “Tenable’s Exposure Management capabilities and Cohesity’s data security and management platform deliver complete visibility across the modern attack surface, including backup environments, so customers can reduce their overall risk and improve their resiliency.” 

“The Cohesity + Cortex XSOAR value is strong, with the bi-directional flow of data and commands to rapidly detect and respond to ransomware,” said Pamela Cyr, vice president Technical Partnerships, Palo Alto Networks. “Cohesity confirms infection, and the Cortex XSOAR automation platform manages the enrichment and initiates a safe restore of business-critical data. We’re happy to be a part of this growing ecosystem.” 

Partners will be able to leverage the Cohesity Data Cloud in a variety of ways to help joint customers advance their security posture. For example, with Cohesity, partners can leverage Cohesity’s AI-based anomaly detection to gain early insights that an attack may be in progress and accelerate response and remediation. Cohesity’s API-first approach makes it incredibly easy for security partners to join the alliance and integrate their solutions with Cohesity’s data security and management platform -- essential as the battle to defeat cyberattacks continues to evolve.  Additional details on the partners can be found below: 

• BigID: Drives visibility and control for all sensitive & critical data helping organisations understand and minimise data risk across the cloud & on-prem with a data-first approach – for data security, privacy, compliance, and governance.

• Cisco: SecureX is a cloud-native solution with XDR capabilities that integrates the Cisco Secure portfolio with the entire security infrastructure, speeding detection, response, and recovery. When a ransomware attack strikes, customers can initiate workflows for Cohesity to restore data and workloads.

• CrowdStrike: Secures the most critical areas of enterprise risk – endpoints, cloud workloads, identity and data – to keep customers ahead of today’s adversaries and stop breaches.

• CyberArk: The CyberArk Identity Security Platform enables unparalleled protection of any identity – human or machine – across the widest range of devices and environments from a single, comprehensive platform.

• Mandiant: Industry-leading threat intelligence and expertise drive dynamic solutions that help organisations develop more effective programs and instill confidence in their cyber readiness.

• Okta: The leading independent identity provider offers platform and services for workforce identity and customer identity.  

• Palo Alto Networks: Cortex XSOAR provides the automation and flexibility that allows enterprises to more quickly manage cyber and ransomware attacks.  

• PwC UK: Offers a full suite of advisory, implementation and managed security services to enable organisations to build their cyber security defences and respond effectively to cyberattacks.

• Securonix: Delivers a solution to defend against advanced threats in today’s complex hybrid environments. Securonix Next-Gen SIEM is powered by the most advanced analytics and built on a scalable, flexible cloud-native architecture.

• Splunk: Provides an extensible data platform that delivers unified security, full-stack observability, and custom applications.

• Tenable: Empowers organisations to understand and reduce their cyber risk by providing visibility across the entire attack surface. Tenable.io powers Cohesity’s CyberScan to easily assess data backup environments, which can be used as a proxy for sensitive production environments as well as ensure that a recovery situation does not introduce vulnerable conditions into production.

“Cybercriminals continue to up their game, often attacking backups in an effort to neutralise an organisation’s options and increase leverage for their ransom demands,” said Kevin Mandia, CEO of Mandiant. “At a time of ever-increasing cyber threats, it’s critical that cybersecurity, data security and management companies work hand-in-hand to collaborate and keep bad actors at bay. We’re thrilled to be part of this security alliance.” 

“A major concern of our customers is the increase in the number and severity of ransomware attacks. These destructive attacks have highlighted the importance of organisations not just having strong protection but coupling it with a comprehensive backup and recovery capability,” said Richard Horne, Partner, PwC UK. “Working alongside Cohesity helps us offer an end-to-end strategy to not only protect our customers against cyberattacks, but to quickly recover their core business operations should they fall victim to a successful attack.”

“The Data Security Alliance is an important step towards ensuring customers are better equipped to defend and recover from cyberattacks. Cohesity’s approach to integrate the Cohesity platform with key security providers with an API-first strategy is absolutely the best method to increase protection for customers,” said Randy Kerns, Senior Strategist and Analyst for Evaluator Group. “The incessant threat of ransomware makes it imperative that cybersecurity, data security and management vendors collaborate to provide customers with a solution to identify, prevent, protect, and recover data in the event of an attack.”