Palo Alto, Deloitte enter U.S. MSSP market with expanded partnership

Palo Alto Networks and Deloitte have announced the expansion of their existing alliance to offer managed security services to their shared U.S. clients. The move will see Palo Alto’s cybersecurity technology portfolio become available in outcome-based, managed offerings from global consulting giant Deloitte, the firms said in a press release. The extended partnership introduces a significant new player into the growing managed security service provider (MSSP) space as organizations increasingly invest in specialized services to bolster defenses and address evolving cyberthreats.

Palo Alto-Deloitte managed service offers threat detection, zero trust, 5G security

The Palo Alto-Deloitte arrangement will offer threat detection, 5G security and enable zero trust for U.S. organizations, the pair stated. Palo Alto’s vice president, Global Systems Integrator Ecosystems, Prem Iyer, said the move into the MSSP sphere has been triggered by customer requests for managed secure access service edge (SASE), cloud, and threat detection and response capabilities. “By offering our innovative security solutions portfolio as a managed service through Deloitte, we’re providing newly extended support to customers who want their cyber programs to truly enable their critical business initiatives.”

Expanded solutions offered as managed services will include:

• Zero trust enterprise enablement including identity context, which enhances automated policy decisions across on-premises, hybrid, and private/public cloud environments
• Multi-cloud automation and orchestration, combining cloud security offerings from both companies
• Managed cyber defense with Palo Alto’s Prisma Cloud and Prisma Cloud Compute solution embedded into Deloitte’s OpenCloud. This will deliver threat detection, prevention, attack surface management, and security automation capabilities. Deloitte can also assist clients by advising, implementing, and operating a cyber defense technology stack leveraging the Palo Alto Networks product portfolio.
• 5G-native security combining security blueprints, data integration, control and cellular signaling domains, and the protection of networks and enterprise users by leveraging cross-domain correlations to enforce security policies based on user, application, and wireless device identities

Kieran Norton, solution leader and principal at Deloitte, added, “We’re advising our clients every day on how cybersecurity can help empower their strategic business priorities, but building it all in-house can be challenging and costly. Together with Palo Alto Networks, we are able to advise, equip, and operate security capabilities for organizations as they work to manage cyberthreats with agility and resilience.”

Palo Alto-Deloitte MSSP move reflects cybersecurity services trend

The extension of the Palo Alto-Deloitte partnership into the MSSP space is symbolic of a growing trend within the cybersecurity sector, Omdia Managing Principal Analyst Eric Parizo tells CSO. “It is becoming clear that from this point forward, if a top-tier cybersecurity platform vendor is not able to support high-dollar product purchases by also offering accompanying fully managed and/or guided services, that vendor risks being left off the short list for major deals.” Customers increasingly need some level of service to accompany large, complex security products, particularly around security operations, and by getting the solution and the service in one purchase, it creates efficiency, he says.

“Even before the pandemic, managed services were already the direction of travel for an increasing proportion of security technology, and COVID-19 merely accelerated that trend,” adds Omdia Senior Principal Analyst Rik Turner. “With ever more cloudification of app infrastructures and the remote working norm, along with a threat landscape characterized by volume, velocity, and variety, enterprises have too much to do with too few people and resources, so if at least some of the burden can be eased by a service provider, so be it.”

Parizo thinks that, with its partnership with Deloitte, Palo Alto took the fastest, easiest path to complementing its sizable and impressive product portfolio with a turnkey managed services capability to keep pace with the direction of the market. “Going forward, the challenge will be on MSSPs to highlight why they can provide a superior service offering to the bundled services offerings that will increasingly be offered by cybersecurity vendors along with their solution purchases,” he says. “I expect that to happen through capabilities like quality of service, services that cover solutions from multiple vendors for heterogenous environments, and of course cost and ROI.”