ARLINGTON, Va .--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has expanded its metro Washington, D.C. innovation hub with the opening today of a new flagship Cyber Fusion Center, located in Arlington’s Rosslyn business district, designed to help organizations apply new techniques and intelligent tools to defend against data breaches and cyberattacks.
The company also plans to add 1,000 highly skilled technology jobs in the metro D.C. region by the end of 2020, including in the high-growth areas of security, digital and cloud.
“We applaud Accenture’s decision to expand its footprint in Arlington and across the metro D.C. region,” said Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. “The company’s investments in our workforce and our cybersecurity capabilities are helping advance our region’s leadership in solving one of the most challenging issues we face today. Accenture’s investments also support Virginia’s commitment to ensuring that our people have the skills they need to thrive in the 21st-century workforce.”
Julie Sweet, Accenture’s chief executive officer – North America, said, “Cybersecurity is a global issue that affects all industries, and Accenture has played a longstanding role in the security innovation ecosystem in metro D.C. We are excited to further our investment in the region with our expanded innovation hub, bringing more of the capabilities every company needs to build trust and protect themselves, their partners and their customers in a digital economy. We are also excited to be investing across our metro D.C. business with our plan to create 1,000 highly skilled technology jobs. We are committed to continuing to help grow metro D.C.”
In addition to the new Cyber Fusion Center, Accenture’s innovation hub in metro D.C. includes an Accenture Lab and a Fjord Studio to facilitate a design-thinking approach to problem solving, and leverages relationships with local accelerators and the start-up community. The Cyber Fusion Center, a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of Washington, D.C.’s Cyber Corridor, brings together world-class threat intelligence services, sophisticated adversary simulations and incident response services to help clients predict and expel cyberattacks by leveraging the latest innovations in advanced cyber threat analytics, detection and prevention technologies.
“The D.C. metropolitan area is home to the largest pool of credentialed cybersecurity talent in the country,” said Omar Abbosh, Accenture’s chief strategy officer. “Our Cyber Fusion Center taps into this highly experienced and well-trained workforce to bring together the best of our intelligence-driven security solutions and services under a single roof. It’s the cornerstone of our end-to-end security capabilities in North America and across the world, leveraging our cybersecurity know-how to help clients build their cyber resilience.”
The Cyber Fusion Center is co-located with an Accenture Lab, which researches and incubates new concepts for cybersecurity solutions through applied R&D projects. A “virtual corridor” – a large, always-on virtual “pipe” – connects the Lab to seven other Accenture Labs across the world, enabling cross pollination of ideas and accelerated collaboration among R&D researchers.
Located at 1201 Wilson Boulevard in Arlington, the new facility has been designed as an immersive workspace to encourage collaboration and breakthrough innovation, where Accenture works with clients to help them predict cyberattacks and test cyber defenses with a sparring-partner approach that replicates real-world cyberattacks. Comprising 28,000 square feet of space, the Cyber Fusion Center has a variety of advanced technological features, including:
- an incident response “war room,” outfitted with leading technologies designed to help clients collaborate with Accenture’s global team of 5,800 security specialists, including those located across the company’s network of Cyber Fusion Centers; and
- a secure hardware test center that conducts advanced research for zero-day vulnerability discovery and defensive countermeasure analysis derived from malware reverse engineering.
“There are few imperatives more pressing than protecting our government and business networks from the vulnerabilities of cyberattacks,” said U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA). “Accenture’s new Cyber Fusion Center is contributing the innovation, talent and leadership that is critical to prevent – and defeat – cyber threats.”
U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) said, “Accenture’s new Cyber Fusion Center and the commitments it is making to Arlington represent another stride forward in Northern Virginia’s place as a major technology center in the U.S.”
The new Cyber Fusion Center is Accenture’s fourth, joining others in Bangalore, India; Prague, Czech Republic; and Tel Aviv, Israel. Accenture’s innovation hub in metro D.C. is part of a network of U.S. hubs including locations in New York; metro San Francisco; Boston; Chicago; Houston; metro Detroit and Columbus, Ohio. These hubs are connected to more than 100 locations around the globe to seamlessly bring the best of Accenture’s global investments and insights to its clients on the ground in North America.
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Accenture is a leading professional services company providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Serving 95 of the Fortune 100 and more than 70 percent of the Fortune 500, the company has more than 50,000 people, operations in 42 cities and a network of eight innovation hubs across the U.S. Accenture was named one of the leading companies to Change the World by Fortune magazine, and is consistently recognized as a FORTUNE Blue Ribbon Company. With an unwavering commitment to inclusion and diversity, the company appears regularly on FORTUNE’s 100 Best Companies to Work For and DiversityInc’s Top 50 Companies for Diversity lists. Visit us at accenture.com/US.
Accenture Security helps organizations build resilience from the inside out, so they can confidently focus on innovation and growth. Leveraging its global network of cybersecurity labs, deep industry understanding across client value chains and services that span the security lifecycle, Accenture protects organizations’ valuable assets, end-to-end. With services that include strategy and risk management, cyber defense, digital identity, application security and managed security, Accenture enables businesses around the world to defend against known sophisticated threats, and the unknown. Follow us @AccentureSecure on Twitter or visit us at www.accenture.com/security.