The expanded relationship between the two long-time partners brings NTT DATA’s Managed Extended Detection Response Service onto the Palo Alto Networks XSIAM Cortex platform, to add additional AI capabilities to threat monitoring, detection and rapid response.
Stefaan Hinderyckx, Senior Vice President, Cybersecurity, Europe, NTT Data
Information technology service provider NTT DATA has announced an expanded partnership with Palo Alto Networks to help global enterprises safeguard their digital infrastructures from emerging cybersecurity threats. The collaboration introduces NTT DATA’s Managed Extended Detection Response Service (MXDR), offering continuous threat monitoring, detection and rapid response capabilities. Leveraging AI and machine learning, the service provides visibility across networks, edge and cloud environments.
“We have been working with Palo Alto Networks for over a decade,” said Stefaan Hinderyckx, Senior Vice President, Cybersecurity, Europe, at NTT Data. “They are one of our largest security partners, and in the past, this was around things like perimeter security and next-gen firewalls. What is new now is that we have adopted their corporate XSIAM, in which all of this is pulled into a data lake. That’s billions of logs on a daily basis, but there are a small number which make noise and are dangerous. Then we leverage Palo Alto Networks’ machine capabilities which will find those few lines in those billions of logs. It then presents a likely treat to the human analyst who can investigate, and quickly determine if it’s a real attack. If it is, and there is something like a compromised endpoint, the response can be automated.”
While the service is powered by Palo Alto Networks’ Cortex XSIAM SOC platform, an AI-driven platform that transforms the SOC by harnessing the power of AI and automation to simplify operations, stop threats at scale, and accelerate incident remediation, the specific MXDR service is provided by NTT DATA.
“We have built a managed service on top of the Palo Alto Networks’ platform, which puts us in a position to make use of their technology,” Hinderyckx said.
This is not the only enterprise offering of this type where NTT DATA is involved, but Hinderyckx said that is the best.
“Palo Alto Networks is our strategic vendor but we have partnerships with others, in particular a slightly trimmed down version that runs on the Microsoft Sentinel SIEM platform,” he said. “The use cases are quite different and the Palo Alto Networks offering is more expansive than the Microsoft one. It contains features like a digital risk protection service, phishing protection, and domain monitoring and takedown, which the Microsoft one does not.”
NTT DATA’s new MXDR service offers 24×7 incident detection and response, supported by a global operations team, AI-driven threat intelligence orchestration and automation. This highly modernized service leverages machine learning for advanced threat detection backed by a team of skilled information security managers, threat hunters, digital forensic experts and certified security professionals.
“We have to leverage AI to combat the use of AI by the other side,” Hinderyckx stated.
Target customers for this are industries that rely on secure, connected environments, including manufacturing, chemical, and pharmaceutical sectors. Key benefits include full visibility into devices and networks from edge to cloud, ensuring robust protection, AI-Powered threat detection which identifies and mitigates threats at machine speed, reduces complexity and TCO with one UI and one agent, and integrated and automated services for resilience against downtime.
