Dell expands cyber resilience tools for AI & identity

Dell has expanded its cybersecurity and resilience portfolio across AI environments, identity systems and infrastructure.

The move adds new services, software features and product integrations in areas many organisations now see as core operational risks.

The updates focus on three parts of the technology stack that have become more exposed as companies adopt AI tools, rely on identity platforms for access control and rethink recovery planning after disruptive cyber incidents. They are intended to help customers protect critical systems, maintain operations and restore trusted environments after an attack.

AI focus

One part of the rollout targets AI environments, which Dell described as a growing attack surface because they combine sensitive data, infrastructure and applications that many security plans were not originally designed to cover.

Dell is adding a Security Hardening for Dell AI Factory service to help organisations deploy AI infrastructure with security controls aligned to internal IT and security standards. It includes assessments across physical, virtual and application layers, along with recommendations on configuration risks that could affect AI workloads.

It is also introducing Resilience Operations for AI, a service focused on identifying an organisation's most important AI functions and setting recovery policies and procedures around them. The aim is to decide in advance which AI applications should be protected first and how they should be recovered if disruption occurs.

Alongside those services, Dell is expanding PowerProtect AI Assistant with a conversational interface for managing cyber resilience tasks, restores and reporting. The update also adds daily risk briefings and a human approval step before actions are carried out.

Identity recovery

A second focus is identity infrastructure, which has become a frequent target because it controls access to systems, applications and data. Dell's latest additions to PowerProtect are designed to restore clean copies of identity platforms after a compromise, rather than requiring organisations to rebuild access controls manually.

The new identity resilience features support Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID and Okta, allowing customers to restore identity platforms and their associated access controls to a trusted state after an incident.

Dell is also offering a managed detection and response service for identity threats. The service monitors suspicious authentication activity, compromised accounts and misuse of privileges around the clock, and can trigger automated response actions when defined attack patterns are detected.

Storage integration

The third pillar covers storage and infrastructure resilience. Dell has deepened integration between PowerProtect and PowerScale so retention lock local snapshots can be initiated, scheduled and managed automatically for faster recovery.

PowerScale SmartSync support also lets customers synchronise snapshots to ObjectScale for an additional recovery copy and longer-term retention. This adds another layer of recoverability for organisations seeking more than one protected copy of critical data.

Dell also used the announcement to outline its response to longer-term cryptographic risks linked to quantum computing. The latest version of PowerStore software introduces quantum-safe data-in-flight encryption over Fibre Channel connectivity when used with supported PowerEdge servers and configurations.

In addition, a Post-Quantum Readiness Assessment is intended to help organisations identify cryptographic exposure across infrastructure and devices, rank the risks and prioritise migration steps.

Some of the new services and features are available now, including the PowerProtect identity resilience tools, managed detection and response for identity, Resilience Operations for AI and the expanded PowerProtect AI Assistant. Other elements, including the PowerStore software update, the post-quantum assessment and the PowerProtect and PowerScale snapshot orchestration integration, are scheduled for subsequent releases.

Simon Jelley, Vice President of Cyber Resilience at Dell, said: "Organisations are managing more complexity, more exposure and faster-moving threats than they were even just a few months ago. Organisations are trying to protect their AI environments, identity systems and infrastructure with tools and strategies that were designed for yesterday's threats. Dell has the portfolio, the services and the operational expertise to help organisations strengthen cyber resilience and close the gaps between where threats are headed and where most strategies stand today."

Dell also pointed to customer and analyst views on the wider market backdrop. Manufacturers and other large organisations are placing more emphasis on backup, recovery and continuity as cyber incidents increasingly disrupt operations rather than simply damage or steal data.

Xiong Xiong, Vice President of IT at Ascend Performance Materials, said: "For manufacturers, resilience is critical to maintaining operations and serving customers without interruption. Working with Dell Technologies has helped strengthen our backup and recovery capabilities, giving us greater confidence in our ability to protect critical data and support business continuity across our global operations."

Dave Vellante, Co-Founder and Chief Analyst at theCUBE Research, said: "Agentic AI is changing both the speed and scope of cyber risk. AI-enabled attacks and enterprise agents can operate at machine speed, amplifying the impact of compromised identities, excessive permissions or errors. Encrypted data stolen today could also be decrypted by future quantum computers. We believe Dell's focus on connecting protection, detection and recovery across AI environments, identity and infrastructure addresses an important enterprise need -- containing disruption, sustaining critical operations and restoring systems and data to a verified, trusted state."