IBM and Cisco has formed a new superhero club to tackle the dark world of cybercrime, focused around threat detection and automation.

As part of the collaboration, the IT caped crusaders will combine powers across products, services and threat intelligence. Cisco security solutions will integrate with IBM’s QRadar across networks, endpoints and cloud. The offering will also see IBM Global Services support across Cisco products in the Managed Security Service Provider portfolio in the battle against Hackman, the Decrypter and Dastardly Data-breach .

The final superpower of the partnership will have IBM X-Force and Cisco Talos security research teams collaborate on threat intelligence research, as well as coordinating on major cybersecurity incidents. We expect ‘Whams’, ‘Biffs’ and ‘Pows’ everywhere.

One of the drivers for the tie-up would appear to be the idea of interoperability. A recent Cisco survey claimed 65% of their organizations use between six and 50 different security products, with the team coming to the conclusion one of the biggest security threats is the complexity of managing such a landscape, as well as the threat of potential gaps being missed. The USP from the new found couple will be the idea of helping customers automate a threat response.

“Cisco’s architectural approach to security allows organizations to see a threat once, and stop it everywhere,” said David Ulevitch, GM of Cisco Security. “By combining Cisco’s comprehensive security portfolio with IBM Security’s operations and response platform, Cisco and IBM bring best-of-breed products and solutions across the network, endpoint and cloud, paired with advanced analytics and orchestration capabilities.”.

“Cybercrime is expected to cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021,” said Marc van Zadelhoff, GM of IBM Security. “This is why IBM has been a proponent of open collaboration and threat sharing in cybersecurity to change the economics for criminals.

“With Cisco joining our immune system of defense, joint customers will greatly expand their ability to enhance their use of cognitive technologies like IBM Watson for Cyber Security. Also, having our IBM X-Force and Cisco Talos teams collaborating is a tremendous advantage for the good guys in the fight against cybercrime.”