PwC And Palo Alto Networks Partner To Boost Cybersecurity Defences In New Zealand

New Zealand customers to benefit from new Managed Detection and Response service

PwC New Zealand and Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW), the global cybersecurity leader, today announced an expanded partnership to boost cybersecurity defences for New Zealand businesses. PwC’s Managed Cyber Defence (MCD) service, with Cortex® XDR™ by Palo Alto Networks, is now available to joint customers in New Zealand and across Japan and Asia-Pacific.

The local partnership is the first of its kind in the region, bringing together New Zealand and UK teams from two global cybersecurity powerhouses to give joint customers an end-to-end, AI-driven, 24/7 cybersecurity service to minimise and prevent cyberthreats. This supports executives and boards to better manage cyber risk in an increasingly hostile threat landscape.

Operating a true 24/7 ‘follow the sun’ service model, local enterprises have access to a team of expert security analysts in New Zealand during the day and via the United Kingdom during New Zealand’s overnight shift.

The local partnership will serve New Zealand businesses and organisations across a range of sectors, including technology, communications, utilities, aviation, government, retail and law enforcement.

Several international clients primarily based in Europe and the U.S. will also be supported by PwC teams across Wellington, Auckland and Edinburgh in the UK using Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR.

PwC’s MCD service combines their global and local expertise with Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR. MCD brings together PwC’s global threat intelligence, thousands of hours of incident response expertise, and advisory services with Cortex XDR — the industry's first fully integrated detection and response platform — to provide an unrivalled level of visibility and detection.

“This region-first partnership is a homegrown Kiwi success story — signalling how some of New Zealand’s leading security experts will lead the charge to address significant demand for cybersecurity and threat protection,” says Misti Landtroop, country manager for New Zealand at Palo Alto Networks.

“This partnership will allow organisations to redeploy their IT teams to other crucial recovery or growth-enabling initiatives while ensuring the business is protected with an automated, enterprise-grade security service delivered in-country,” added Landtroop.

“With cybersecurity skills at a premium, it means organisations can benefit from 24/7 protection without the hardware investment and challenge of sourcing talent to run this operation.”

Julian Bruce-Miller, director of cyber at PwC says: “PwC is thrilled to expand our partnership with Palo Alto Networks through the delivery of best-in-class managed detection and response services for our high value, joint customers. The MCD service enables our customers’ in-house security teams to significantly reduce the time taken to detect and respond to attacks down to minutes. It also reduces manual day-to-day operational workloads for their security teams by up to 90%,[1] allowing them to focus on the events that really matter.”

[1] PwC analysis of MCD service deployment

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