Booz Allen Hamilton has joined forces with cybersecurity software company Acalvio Technologies to assist federal government agencies with strengthening cyber posture.
The partnership will focus on the joint deployment of an Acalvio-created autonomous deception platform to try and curb advanced persistent threats, ransomware and insider threats, the McLean, Virginia-based company said Monday.
“To outpace the adversary, it is imperative that government and commercial organizations better integrate and synchronize the way they conduct cyber offense and defense,” commented Garrettson Blight, director of national cyber solutions at Booz Allen.
Blight went on to describe how Booz Allen’s collaboration with Acalvio accomplishes this objective via the harnessing of offensive insights to power cyber defense, with the products operationalizing data at a fast rate so they can meet the demands of governments protecting information.
The autonomous deception product offered by Acalvio, ShadowPlex, is reportedly the sole cyber deception certified to be used in secure government environments by FedRAMP. It works by identifying, inspecting and answering malicious incursions within information technology and operational technology architectures, both on-site and in the cloud.
The product’s deployment is positioned to prioritize the alerts of fraudulent and ill intent activity and provide early detection of threats.
Acalvio’s signature Deception Farm tool, which utilizes bait and decoys such as fake hosts or “honeypots” to lure and trick hackers in order to gain more insights, will be added to Booz Allen’s robust portfolio of capabilities through the new partnership. Their existing catalog includes reverse engineering, defensive technologies, predictive analytics, vulnerability assessments, proactive threat hunting and artificial intelligence and machine learning in anticipation of bad actors.
Booz Allen and Acalvio’s joint offerings will be delivered to government entities programmed and ready to ‘plug and play.’ They are additionally intended to bolster Booz Allen’s current threat hunting, detection engineering and zero trust strategies.
Earlier this month, Booz Allen established a $100 million venture capital arm entitled Booz Allen Ventures that is set to make investments in technology startups creating services in AI and ML and deep technology and cybersecurity. This fund may play a role in their work with Acalvio.
