Nvidia partners with cybersecurity vendors for real-time monitoring

Nvidia has partnered with leading cybersecurity firms to provide real-time security protection using its accelerator and networking hardware in combination with its AI software.

Under the agreement, Nvidia will work with partners to provide integration of its BlueField and Morpheus hardware with cyber defenses software from Armis, Check Point Software Technologies, CrowdStrike, Deloitte and World Wide Technology (WWT).

BlueField data processing units (DPUs) are designed to offload and accelerate networking traffic and specific tasks from the CPU like security and storage. It has libraries, APIs, and a set of tools that allow developers to build high-performance applications for data centers supporting network virtualization, storage offload, and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads.

Morpheus is a GPU-accelerated data processing framework optimized for cybersecurity, using deep learning and machine learning models to detect and mitigate cyber threats in real time. It can process large amounts of data from network traffic, logs, and endpoint behavior to identify anomalies and potential threats.

“It’s important to understand that BlueField and Morpheus are complementing enterprise security companies, not competing with them,” said the company spokesman. “Nvidia is not a cybersecurity provider, and doesn’t aim to be. What we’re doing is empowering the cybersecurity ecosystem with DPU- and GPU-accelerated computing and AI capabilities.”

Another piece of the puzzle is Nvidia’s Data Center Infrastructure-on-a-Chip (DOCA) architecture, a software framework designed to enable and accelerate workloads on BlueField DPUs.

Unlike conventional offerings that rely on intrusive methods or software agents, BlueField-3 DPUs function as a virtual security overlay. They inspect network traffic and safeguard host integrity without disrupting operations.

Other packages rely on tapping devices to access network data, which helps create a map of interconnected devices. But these tools don’t offer the same level of detail about what’s happening at the node level.

“The beauty of Nvidia BlueField is that it enables comprehensive visibility at the host, network, and application levels at the same time,” said the spokesman. “What we’re doing is we’re taking BlueField and integrating it into existing solutions. So it’s a ‘better together’ story rather than BlueField competing with other products.”

Nvidia’s cybersecurity AI platform is available today. Some of the capabilities and partner integrations are in early access and will be generally available in Q2.