Google Parent Launches Cybersecurity Firm

Google has a new sibling.

Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., said Wednesday it is launching its 13th unit: a cybersecurity business called Chronicle LLC.

The company plans to sell cybersecurity services to other companies. Chronicle Chief Executive Stephen Gillett, a former executive at antivirus-software firm Symantec Corp., said Chronicle would help companies better use their data to improve security.

"We want to 10x the speed and impact of security teams' work by making it much easier, faster and more cost-effective for them to capture and analyze security signals that have previously been too difficult and expensive to find," he said in a blog post.

Chronicle plans to leverage Alphabet's technology to help companies run analyses faster and store larger amounts of data to recognize patterns.

Chronicle illustrates Alphabet's mission to make a variety of smaller bets outside of Google that could become its next big business. Other units include DeepMind, an artificial-intelligence firm; Calico, a life-extension lab; and two investment firms. Its last new unit, the self-driving-car firm Waymo, launched in December 2016.

None of the new units have yet become significant businesses. Alphabet executives have stressed many of the bets will need years to pay off and only a few need to succeed for the Alphabet strategy to work.

Like Waymo, Chronicle is spinning out of Alphabet's secretive research lab X, where it began two years ago. Chronicle said several large companies are testing its technology but it wouldn't say when it would begin selling more widely.

Write to Jack Nicas at jack.nicas@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 24, 2018 16:00 ET (21:00 GMT)