CrowdStrike partners Google to secure ChromeOS devices

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike announced the first native XDR (extended detection and response) offering for Google’s operating system ChromeOS. The company’s partnership with Google is expected to address a long-standing challenge for IT security teams who have struggled to monitor and defend ChromeOS devices due to their unique architecture and the lack of native security tools, the company said. 

While ChromeOS’ market share is still small (less than 7% of the worldwide market share) in comparison with the traditional Windows and MacOS-based PCs in businesses, as per February 2023 data from market research firm IDC, its footprint is growing in the enterprise environment. Hence, businesses need to ensure ChromeOS devices are secure. However, traditional security solutions are often ill-suited for these devices. 

One of the biggest challenges of monitoring and defending ChromeOS devices is the lack of visibility, believe experts. That’s because ChromeOS devices operate in a sandboxed environment that isolates applications and data from each other. This makes it difficult for traditional security solutions to detect threats as they may be contained within a single application or user account. In addition, ChromeOS devices often do not have the same level of access to system resources as traditional operating systems, which further complicates the detection of threats.

Michael Suby, research vice president at IDC, said that “lacking visibility into Chromebooks represents open invitation to bad actors. CrowdStrike’s native, agentless integration into ChromeOS rescinds this invitation”. 

That said, CrowdStrike's Falcon Insight XDR solutions are designed to provide comprehensive visibility and detection capabilities across all endpoints, networks, and cloud environments, enabling IT security teams to detect and respond to threats quickly and efficiently. Also, IT departments can now better manage user logins and help keep sensitive information from inadvertently traveling around and outside organisations.

“CrowdStrike collaborated closely with the Google ChromeOS team to provide our joint customers with complete visibility and threat detection for their ChromeOS devices, as part of the CrowdStrike Falcon platform,” Michael Sentonas, president of CrowdStrike, said in a statement.  

CrowdStrike’s ChromeOS integration with Google will be available for supported devices running ChromeOS 110 or higher. The integration will be generally available for customers by June 2023.

Meanwhile, Google is reportedly working with other popular third-party enterprise management and security companies like Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, and more, to give IT departments the ability to better integrate Chromebooks within their environments and remain secure with the browser.