Chronicle launches of Backstory, its first data security platform

Unlike data security platforms, Backstory’s pricing will depend of the size of the company and not on the size of the customer’s data.

Chronicle, the cybersecurity company that spun out of the former Google X and currently a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., recently announced the launch of Backstory, a data security platform and Chronicle’s first commercial product.

Backstory is designed to enable security analysts to scrutinize potential threats as it uses Google’s vast analytics capabilities and infrastructure. It helps security analysts to pinpoint the real vulnerabilities and stands out in a crowded U.S. cybersecurity market with its capabilities to knit all of the data from their different products in a unified system.

Jon Oltsik, an experienced analyst, has been quoted to say that there is shortage of cyber security professionals and therefore they prefer to undertake actual security functions rather than managing the security data infrastructure. He added that such a scenario has created a massive opportunity for cloud retailers who have their own cloud infrastructure that can tackle the avalanche of security information being generated at present.

Though the pricing details for Backstory has not yet been revealed, Stephen Gillett, has been reported to say that unlike other data security platforms, Backstory’s pricing will depend of the size of the company and not on the size of the customer’s data.

Though Chronicle has been reported to have expressed it desire to partner rather than compete with existing cybersecurity companies, some competition has become inevitable in the market. It is being anticipated that security information and event management (SIEM) companies such as IBM, Splunk and Rapid7, would be the most obvious rivals of Chronicle’s business.

Chronicle also has the added advantage of a user interface that is easy to use like the Google search engine. Some companies have been reported to have already deployed Backstory, such as Carbon Black which had been a part of the beta test for Backstory and has joined its analytics, processing and storage offerings with its endpoint security data.

Michael Viscuso, chief strategy officer and founder of Carbon Black has been reported to say that current model for security analytics is slow and fragmented and the with the existent tools, the work for security teams gets expensive and time consuming.