France-based defence specialists Airbus and Thales have signed an agreement to blend two of their cybersecurity products into one defence offering.

The partnership will see Airbus’ cybersecurity application Orion Malware work in tandem with Thales’ Cybels Sensor detection system, in an unusual joint go-to-market initially available to French customers.

Airbus cybersecurity Orion Malware appliance uses several threat detection engines to initiate multiple scans of a system and can plug into SIEMS.

As part of the integration, Orion will analyse thousands of files per hour using customer built Airbus security APIs and ICAPS.

Airbus Orion can mitigate attacks by using sandbox isolation techniques which can operate at the kernel level.

While Thales Cybles Sensor analyses large amounts of data in real-time using an AI assisted threat detection system.

The system is supported by Thales’ cyber threat intelligence laboratory which continuously ingests the tool with the most recently discovered malware and their signatures. Upon detection the system will send out alerts to IT security.

The system is capable of masking its detection abilities so attackers are unaware of the malware signatures it is aware of.  This system is currently been used by the European Space Agency to protect the Galileo satellite constellation, an EU alternative to GPS.

Airbus and Thales Working Together

This partnership by Airbus and Thales will see both of these cybersecurity products work in tandem. Once the Cybles Sensor detects a malware signature Airbus Orion will kick in and run an in-depth analysis of the threat in less than a minute, they claim.

Once analysed the Orion Malware application will return a report that outlines the risks and indicate if the system has been compromised. As part of the report a non-technical addition will be produced so a cybersecurity laypersons can quickly digest the material.

Thales and Airbus stated in a release that: “The solution is easy to implement and is fully adapted and optimised for Security Operations Centres (SOCs), incident response and cyber threat intelligence operations. It therefore reduces the costs of operating and protecting IT infrastructure.”

Cybersecurity companies coming together to offer more robust solutions for business is starting to become a bit of trend: earlier this week IBM and McAfee came together to found The Open Cybersecurity Alliance.

The Alliance also includes 16 other cybersecurity firms and is tasked with creating “protocols and standards which enable tools to work together and share information across vendors.”