Thursday, September 20, 2012

RSA and Booz Allen Hamilton Join Forces to Help Government and Commercial Organizations Get the Upper Hand Against Advanced Cyber Threats

RSA, The Security Division of EMC, and Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. have announced a consulting and services partnership that is designed to provide enhanced offerings and make it easier for commercial and public sector customers to use the information security expertise and specialized technologies from both cyber security leaders.

The consulting and services partnership, announced today to industry and government leaders at RSA's second Advanced Threats Summit in Washington, DC, will have three initial objectives: 1) to develop joint information security service offerings; 2) simplify client engagements for security preparedness and incident response; and 3) further assessing the commercialization of advanced security technologies from Booz Allen Hamilton that play a crucial role in detecting and defeating today's sophisticated computer attacks.

The collaboration leverages RSA's decades of experience in developing computer security software used by tens of thousands of customers worldwide as well as Booz Allen Hamilton's depth of expertise in designing and managing security operations and cyber analytics for some of the world's most sensitive government and commercial entities.

Through this consulting and services partnership the two companies will focus on:
Development of joint service offerings that would leverage the deep technical and analytical experience of both companies in designing threat-resistant digital infrastructures and in helping customers remediate recent or active cyber attacks.

Reciprocal agreements that will be designed to enable the companies to draw on each other's security services as part of customer engagements, shortening the time to identify and deploy appropriate services while simplifying the customer's engagement model. As part of this, Booz Allen Hamilton will help RSA expand global reach for its newly announced RSA Advanced Cyber Defense Services practice designed to provide breach readiness and incident response services to commercial and government enterprises (see related RSA news announcement).

Exploration of options for the commercialization of Booz Allen-developed software, known as 'Automated First Responder (AFR)' which is used in incident response and threat identification. The goal will be to facilitate faster and broader utilization of this advanced technology by incident response teams, including those offered by this consulting and services partnership. AFR technology is often deployed on end-point devices and servers during incident response, and provides information that can indicate the nature and scope of a potential compromise.

Mike McConnell , Vice Chairman of Booz Allen Hamilton and former Director of National Intelligence and Director, National Security Agency, said: "The lines between types of attackers, attack techniques, and even motives continue to blur in today's increasingly connected digitally dependent world. Government agencies and a full range of commercial enterprises today must be able to defend themselves from a growing list of online adversaries, all of whom will be armed with increasingly sophisticated malware and tactics. To be successful, enterprises require much greater access to the wealth of information, technologies, and tactics that companies such as RSA and Booz Allen have developed through practical experience in defending the world's most sensitive digital infrastructures. Our consulting and services partnership is one step in improving that collaboration, giving our clients and customers better and faster access to the expertise and tools they need to defend their information and valuable digital assets."

Rear Admiral (Ret.) Mike Brown, Vice President and General Manager of RSA Federal and Critical Infrastructure, said: "Whether their motives are cybercrime, cyber espionage or cyber terrorism, the adversaries that organizations face online are highly effective at collaboration, information sharing, and technology sharing. Joint ventures such as the one we are announcing today demonstrate that security practitioners can be equally collaborative. RSA and Booz Allen Hamilton maintain leadership positions in security software development, security consulting, and incident response. Through our consulting and services partnership, we will be better able to put our skills and expertise to work for customers in the public and private sectors, so our customers can reap the benefits of technology while successfully managing the risks across the digital threat landscape."

About Booz Allen Hamilton

Booz Allen Hamilton is a leading provider of management and technology consulting services to the U.S. government in defense, intelligence, and civil markets, and to major corporations, institutions, and not-for-profit organizations. Booz Allen is headquartered in McLean, Virginia, employs approximately 25,000 people, and had revenue of $5.86 billion for the 12 months ended March 31, 2012.

About RSA

RSA, The Security Division of EMC, is the premier provider of security, risk and compliance management solutions for business acceleration. RSA helps the world's leading organizations succeed by solving their most complex and sensitive security challenges. These challenges include managing organizational risk, safeguarding mobile access and collaboration, proving compliance, and securing virtual and cloud environments.

Combining business-critical controls in identity assurance, encryption & key management, SIEM, Data Loss Prevention and Fraud Protection with industry leading eGRC capabilities and robust consulting services, RSA brings visibility and trust to millions of user identities, the transactions that they perform and the data that is generated. For more information, please visit www.EMC.com/RSA.

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