Google parent launches new cybersecurity business called Chronicle

Google’s parent Alphabet is launching a new cybersecurity business called Chronicle. Its objective is to help other companies “find and stop cyber attacks before they cause harm.”

A blog post by the company’s CEO, Stephen Gillett, a former Symantec executive, explains that Chronicle will have two main components:

• A cybersecurity intelligence and analytics platform — to help companies understand and manage their own internal data.
• VirusTotal, an anti-malware tool/service, which Google bought in 2012.

The unit was formed to address escalating cybersecurity threats and issues. Gillett asserts, there’s “a huge talent shortage” in the segment. He added that the “dozens of security products that a typical large organization deploys” are making security and threat detection more difficult, not easier.

Chronicle aims to bring more sophistication and simplicity to the process. Gillett says that it will make threat detection and data-breach prevention “easier, faster and more cost-effective” for third-party companies.

The business has been incubating within Google’s X “moonshot” unit for two years. For marketing purposes, it’s critical that this effort is launched as an independent entity and not under the Google brand.

However, the company is leveraging Google’s infrastructure and computing power to “search and retrieve useful information and run analysis in minutes, rather than the hours or days it currently takes.”