Hewlett-Packard partners with cybersecurity firm FireEye

The prominent cybersecurity firm FireEye, Inc. and tech giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) recently announced a partnership to develop advanced threat protection.

Hass and Associates Cyber Security perceives this as one of the coming wave of alliances between small and large tech companies aiming to strengthen their security.

The deal that will expand Milpitas-based FireEye’s reach was announced at the RSA Conference on security that is held in San Francisco.

This year’s conference has 500 exhibitors, compared with 400 last year.

The interest in cybersecurity has been heightened in the conference because of the attacks on big companies for the past two years such as Sony, Target Corporation, JPMorgan Chase, Anthem Inc., and Home Depot.

CEO and Chairman of the Board of FireEye, Dave DeWalt defined the deal as “capability meets scale” during an interview before the announcement.

In addition, the two other alliances announced by HP were cloud security partnerships with Los Angeles-based Securonix and Palo Alto-based Adallom.

Securonix is a provider of security intelligence platform for monitoring security events. It also identifies and access data to detect insider threats and advanced targeted attacks. While Adallom is a cloud security firm with research headquarters in Israel.

HP described the alliances as developing an advanced cyber defense emphasizing the protection of users’ interactions, applications and data, rather than the old practice of securing the perimeter, in which data flows were restricted in the interests of security.

Although HP has its own large security team, given the threat level, HP needs a FireEye which has a next-generation security platform.

HP’s own security professionals can now bring in FireEye’s technology and the investigative group from Mandiant.

On December 30, 2013, FireEye acquired Mandiant in a stock and cash deal worth in more than $1 billion.

In February 2013, Mandiant rose to prominence when it released a report documenting evidence of cyber-attacks by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army targeting at least 141 organizations in the United States and other English-speaking countries extending as far back 2006.

Mandiant’s main services are expensive. However, the deal will bring a co-branded version of its services to smaller companies.

Executive Vice President of HP Enterprise Services, Mike Nefkens said that the partnership will beef up HP’s security portfolio. HP and FireEye are making it possible for their clients to analyze and improve their defenses before the next attack with the most advanced cybersecurity protection available today.

HP also reaches many countries where FireEye has a smaller presence including Africa, Middle East, and Europe.

FireEye also announced a partnership with Israeli security provider Check Point Software Technologies to share threat intelligence to protect customers from modern advanced attacks.