Verisign opens Asia Pacific security centre in Melbourne

Stan Beer
Friday, 03 December 2004 01:19

IT Industry - Development

Networking infrastructure vendor, VeriSign, has today opened an Asia Pacific security operations centre in Melbourne, one of five throughout the world, to service what it says is a growing demand by its clients for managed security services.

According to Verisign, figures from research group IDC predict that the managed security market in Australia will grow to US$44.6 millionby 2006.

The centre, which will initially have a dozen staff, including seven IT security specialists, is the first of its kind to be built by VeriSign in Asia Pacific and will offer to provide Australian companies with an analysis of security threats. The analysts will use data collected through VeriSign's global customer-base. According to Verisign, the investment in the centre highlights it desire to become the managed security services provider of choice for Australian organisations.

VeriSign claims that its own statistics, drawn from global client samples, show that clients using its services can reduce the cost of responding to security threats by up to US$90,000 (presumably for a large organisation).

"Local businesses are searching for stronger overall security without stretching their in-house resources," says Spencer Ingram, VeriSign's managed security services operations manager. "All organisations now require 24/7 effective IT security and many are seeking world standard services on a managed basis."

Gregg Rowley, MD VeriSign Australia, says: "VeriSign is investing in its managed security services in Australia, recognising the excellent skills and infrastructure available locally. The SOC in Melbourne will be developed as a centre of excellence in Asia Pacific, building skills and expertise that can be used regionally to combat IT security threats."

According the executive manager, enterprise at VersiSign, Ed Elliff, the new Melbourne security centre is one of five the company has throughout the world, the others being two in North America, with one each in Europe and Japan.

"The Melbourne centre will be primarily focussed on Australian and some South East Asian customers, providing services such as managed firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention, and managed vulnerability and prevention services," Elliff said.