SUNNYVALE — Google has formed the Google Cybersecurity Action Team. Made up of experts from across the company, the Google Cybersecurity Action Team will be the world’s premier security advisory team with the singular mission of supporting the security and digital transformation of governments, critical infrastructure, enterprises and small businesses.
The announcement was made as part of Google Cloud and its Next 21 digital event.
The Google Cybersecurity Action Team will provide:
- Strategic advisory services for customers’ security strategies, including transformation workshops and educational content. This function will advise customers on the structure of their digital security transformation and provide program management and professional services support.
- Trust and compliance services that map global compliance certifications to industry control frameworks, enabling customers to simplify their compliance journey.
- Security customer and solutions engineering that deliver proven blueprints and architectures for deploying Google Cloud products and services securely and in accordance with regulatory requirements, as well as comprehensive solutions for autonomic security operations, cyber resilience and more.
- Threat intelligence and incident response services, which include threat briefings, preparedness drills, incident support and rapid response engagements to stay on top of the evolving security landscape.
The vision of this team is to guide customers through the cycle of security transformation – from their first transformation roadmap and implementation, through increasing their cyber-resilience preparedness for potential events and incidents, and engineering new solutions as requirements change. This effort will begin within Google Cloud, building on our close partnerships with organizations of all sizes, and will evolve to bring Google security to more organizations as it progresses.
“Cybersecurity is at the top of every C-level and board agenda, given the increasing prominence of software supply chain exploits, ransomware, and other attacks. To address these unprecedented security challenges facing organizations in every industry today, we are announcing the creation of the Google Cybersecurity Action Team,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “The Google Cybersecurity Action Team is part of our ongoing commitment to be the best partner for our enterprise and government customers along their security transformation journey.”
Recent attacks like USAID, Colonial Pipeline, and Solarwinds all speak to a major shift in the needs of threat protection. In August, Google dedicated $10 billion over the next five years to strengthen cybersecurity, including expanding zero trust programs, securing software supply chain frameworks, enhancing open-source security and strengthening the digital security skills of the American workforce. The Google Cybersecurity Action team is one of our efforts under these commitments.
“The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently established the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC). This initiative will unite government and private sector entities to enhance efforts to prevent and respond to malicious cyber activity against the nation’s critical infrastructure,” said CISA Director Jen Easterly. “It’s great to see a large company like Google Cloud orient itself to support the cybersecurity of all organizations large and small through its Cybersecurity Action Team, and as part of the JCDC and other initiatives, we look forward to partnering with them and other tech companies in this vital effort.”
“Google Cloud has been a critical partner in the BBVA security journey, helping us protect our customers’ sensitive and proprietary data with modern frameworks like zero trust and secure-by-default products like Google Workspace,” said Alvaro Garrido, Chief Security Officer at BBVA. “We look forward to the strategic services and guidance the Google Cybersecurity Action Team will deliver as we continue on our security transformation.”
Under the Google Cybersecurity Action Team, Google Cloud will deliver full spectrum security and customer engineering solutions that will help organizations address business and security challenges. These will build on existing offerings like Autonomic Security Operations, which helps businesses transform their organization’s Security Operations Center (SOC) and Web App and API Protection, which provides customers a comprehensive solution for protecting against modern internet threats.
“Customers need a consistent approach to preparing for and defending against cybersecurity threats,” said Phil Venables, Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer at Google Cloud and founder of the Google Cybersecurity Action Team. “Our comprehensive suite of security solutions delivered through our platform and amplified by the Google Cybersecurity Action Team will help protect organizations against adverse cyber events with capabilities that address industry frameworks and standards.”
Building on existing security solutions engineering efforts, the Google Cybersecurity Action Team announced a security and resilience framework that delivers a roadmap for a comprehensive security management program aligned with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework using cloud technologies from Google Cloud and its partners.
