Accenture standardizes application security on Black Duck Polaris platform

Accenture names Black Duck Polaris as security backbone

Accenture is standardising its Application Security Practice on Black Duck’s Polaris platform under a managed security service provider (MSSP) agreement that positions Polaris as a core element of Accenture’s application security delivery. The deal makes Polaris the default, cloud-based, AI-powered application security testing (AST) solution for Accenture’s global practice and is intended to streamline onboarding, testing and CI/CD integrations across client engagements. Accenture is expected to use the platform to provide unified, real-time static, software composition and dynamic application security testing from a single SaaS offering.

As an MSSP partner, Accenture will both deliver managed services built on Polaris and gain authorisation to resell Black Duck solutions, giving clients the option to access Polaris through Accenture’s global channels. The arrangement allows Accenture to bundle Polaris into broader managed security offerings, training and transformation programmes, which the company says will accelerate client adoption of DevSecOps best practices and reduce mean time to remediate vulnerabilities. Accenture positions the move as a way to scale security across teams and applications, from single apps to thousands, while maintaining consistent governance and compliance reporting.

Accenture is emphasising the combined offering’s operational benefits for enterprise customers, including cost-effective scaling, integrated dashboards for risk posture visibility and tailored support from Accenture security teams. Rich Bukowczyk, managing director at Accenture Security, says Polaris helps protect critical assets and maintain customer trust by delivering proactive, real-time insights to manage application risk at business velocity. Black Duck CEO Jason Schmitt says the partnership underscores both companies’ commitment to high-level application security and analytics-driven vulnerability management.

Polaris features and service delivery

Black Duck markets Polaris as an enterprise-grade platform that unifies SAST, SCA and DAST analysis, augmented with analytics and automation to reduce mean time to detect and remediate vulnerabilities. The platform is designed for seamless CI/CD and test automation integrations, providing comprehensive dashboards and reports intended to support large-scale DevSecOps deployments.

Industry implications

The agreement signals a push by consulting and security service providers to embed automated, analytics-driven AST into transformation programmes, enabling clients to meet compliance and governance requirements at scale. Accenture and Black Duck say the integrated offering aims to set new standards in secure software development and deployment while improving measurable security outcomes and risk metrics for organisations worldwide.