Google To Boost Cloud Security Initiatives With Chronicle

Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) division Google is firing on all cylinders to expand presence in the cloud market further on the back of its strengthening security offerings.

The company’s recent announcement about the absorption of Chronicle by Google Cloud is a testament to the aforesaid statement.

Chronicle, which was founded in Alphabet’s X moonshot factory, is an enterprise security company. It is likely to bolster Google Cloud’s security portfolio and integration is expected to commence soon with expected completion by fall this year.

This in turn will enhance Google’s integrated offerings to cloud customers who demand for robust security solutions due to increasing cyber attacks and threats. Further, this integration will aid Google Cloud momentum across enterprise customers.

Cloud Security Space Holds Promise

With Chronicle, Google Cloud aims at providing workload transparency to customers.

Notably, the company will be able to aid customers in rapidly detecting and mitigating the threats across cloud deployments and entire enterprise with the addition of Chronicle’s Backstory investigation flows to its security portfolio which will strengthen detection, incident management and remediation capabilities.

Further, the company’s threat data informing offerings will get enhanced with Chronicle’s VirusTotal malware intelligence services. Further, these services will support applications running on Google Cloud platform.

All these are likely to aid Google in gaining traction in the cloud security space which is exposed to threats like insecure application programming interfaces (API), data breaches and data loss.

As per a report from Grand View Research, the global cloud security market is expected to hit $12.63 billion by 2024 at a CAGR of 13.9%.

Further, a Gartner report suggests that worldwide spending on security products and services is expected to surge 8.7% year over year to $124 billion in 2019. Out of this, cloud security spending stands at $459 million, while spending on infrastructure protection and integrated risk management is pegged at $15.3 billion and $4.7 billion, respectively.

Chronicle makes Google well-poised to reap benefits from the above-mentioned growth prospects.

Alphabet Inc. Revenue (TTM)

Alphabet Inc. Revenue (TTM)

Alphabet Inc. revenue-ttm | Alphabet Inc. Quote

Growing Competition

However, potential opportunities in the booming cloud security market and increasing security spending are lucrative.

Apart from Google, companies like Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) , Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) have also realized the burgeoning need for cloud security services, consequently intensifying competition.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a security platform based on data center and network architecture that enables customers to scale and innovate in a secure cloud environment. The platform offers mitigation of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, customer-controlled encryption and, identity and access management, to name a few.

Further, Microsoft’s Azure security platform offers multi-layered, built-in security controls and unique threat intelligence to detect threats early and counter rapidly evolving threats.

Additionally, Oracle’s cloud platform also offers Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) service that offers visibility into the entire cloud stack and the security automation tool. The platform also provides many other services like security monitoring and analytics, and configuration and compliance, to name a few.

Nevertheless, Google’s strong focus toward offering defense-in-depth at scale across hardware infrastructure, service deployment, user identity, data storage, internet communication and security operations remain major positive. Further, integration of Chronicle’s products and engineering team is likely to strengthen its cloud market position.

Currently, Alphabet carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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