Palo Alto Networks today announced the integration of its security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) platform with Cohesity's artificial intelligence (AI) data management platform in a move the vendors say will greatly lower customers' ransomware risk.

Enterprises need to be able to quickly detect and resolve cyberattacks like ransomware, but less than half (47%) of organizations end up tackling most or all of the security alerts they receive each day, according to a Forrester report. This is why speed and agility are key goals of the integration.

Cohesity's AI-powered Helios platform provides detailed automatic alerts when it detects an anomaly in backup data that indicates a budding attack. Once the alert is sent, Palo Alto Networks' Cortex XSOAR begins "an automated playbook to triage and mitigate the impact" of potential cyberattacks.

Cohesity says its architecture and software, driven by AI insights, makes sure backup data is immutable and unable to be accidentally or maliciously overwritten. In the case of an attack, the vendor claims it's able to find and recover a clean copy of stolen or altered data.

The vendors claim this integration will lower the number of false positive security alerts and ensure all alerts can be addressed in a timely manner, alleviating pressure and burnout for security analysts.

"This integration of Cohesity Helios with Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR helps our joint customers integrate and automate their ITOps and SecOps response to ransomware attacks to minimize impact and quickly recover core business systems. Coupled with our advanced capabilities in zero trust, anomaly detection, and instant recovery, customers can greatly reduce their ransomware risk," Robert Shields, Cohesity director of product marketing and data security, wrote in an email to SDxCentral.

The integration is now available on the Cortex XSOAR marketplace.