Generative AI Augments Marriott’s Cybersecurity Posture with AWS Partners Deloitte and Palo Alto Networks

By Leo LaBranche, Director, Global Strategic Initiatives – AWS

How does the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the world’s largest hospitality company, with 8,700 properties in 139 countries and serving 189 million elite members, manage cybersecurity?

For Arno Van Der Walt, SVP, CISO at Marriott International, cybersecurity is managed through a customer service philosophy that is “human-centered, data-driven, and technology-enabled.” Marriott’s “impossible” is to make security present, transparent, and frictionless. Critical to overseeing Marriott’s complex security posture—and making its impossible possible—is its partnership with AWS Partners Deloitte and Palo Alto Networks.

The well-known shortfall of security experts in the cybersecurity field is throttling customers and partners alike; there’s a 100:1 ratio between developers and security professionals. Customers also struggle with managing disparate solutions and vendors. The solution lies in harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), empowering customers to do more with less.

Deloitte is using generative AI on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to power secure environments where customers and partners can share security data and threat intelligence. This is critical for Deloitte to achieve its “impossible”—a world where cyber attacks are no longer credible threats.

According to Emily Mossburg, Global Cyber Leader at Deloitte, “By creating a security environment where partners and customers share threat intelligence powered by generative AI with machine learning models, autonomous security can become a reality.” Cybersecurity must be a priority across the organization, accountable at an executive level and to the Board of Directors, Mossburg advises.

Deloitte, an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner, is unifying business and security data through a new platform that uses Amazon Security Lake and is “designed with partners in mind to help customers manage the increasing complexity of their cybersecurity environment,” says Dr. Ruba Borno, VP of AWS Worldwide Channels and Alliances.

Deloitte’s platform—ConvergeSECURITY—brings together the core components for a comprehensive security program, allowing them to become interoperable. ConvergeSECURITY leverages the latest AI/ML technologies from AWS, providing actionable security insights to help detect threats sooner.

Deloitte’s collaboration with both AWS and independent software vendors (ISVs) like Palo Alto Networks is critical to making end-to-end cybersecurity management, detection, response, and recovery a reality. To learn more about this innovative collaboration, watch this segment from the AWS Partner Keynote at re:Invent 2023 featuring leaders from Marriott, Deloitte, and Palo Alto Networks.

Palo Alto Networks is an AWS Specialization Partner with the Security Competency that takes a holistic code-to-cloud platform approach to attain its “impossible” of zero risk and zero breaches.

According to Ankur Shah, SVP & GM at Palo Alto Networks, generative AI allows customers to build and deploy applications faster than ever. But there’s a central challenge for applications and security: a single problem in code gets magnified in cloud, compounding the familiar problem of limited security professionals. This is where a single platform approach, together with partners, can help.

Palo Alto Networks knows how to build excellent cybersecurity products, but working together with a partner like Deloitte creates an even stronger cybersecurity solution for clients. “Partners like Deloitte have been … instrumental in delivering that holistic solution, operationalizing the product, [and] ensuring that our customers have reduced risk and breaches,” says Shah.

As Mossburg from Deloitte aptly points out, “What has gotten us to this point today is not going to be what propels us to the future.” To succeed, it will take the power of the AWS Global Partner Security Initiative, a partner-led approach that employs the capabilities of the world’s largest global system integrators (GSIs) and ISVs to create cybersecurity solutions for customers.

For AWS, Deloitte, and Palo Alto Networks, tri-party services are making the impossible possible for Marriott in cybersecurity.

Deloitte – AWS Partner Spotlight

Deloitte is an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner and Managed Service Provider (MSP). Through a network of professionals, industry specialists, and an ecosystem of alliances, they assist clients in turning complex business issues into opportunities for growth, helping organizations transform in the digital era.

Contact Deloitte | Partner Overview | Case Studies

Palo Alto Networks – AWS Partner Spotlight

Palo Alto Networks is an AWS Security Competency Partner that helps customers accelerate cloud migration initiatives with inline and API-based security offerings that complement native AWS security features.

Contact Palo Alto Networks | Partner Overview | AWS Marketplace | Case Studies