Optus and FireEye will invest up to US$50 million (A$57.1 million) on two security operation centres in Sydney and Singapore, both of which will open in Q1, 2015.
Optus parent company Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) is also involved with the cyber security partnership. Speaking on a media call today, SingTel group enterprise CEO Bill Chang said up to 150 staff will be trained to operate the Advanced Security Operation Centres (ASOCs). However, he did not give a breakdown of how many people will be based in Sydney.
According to Chang, the ASOCs will be integrated with SingTel’s network operations centres to provide end-to-end visibility across corporate networks and Internet traffic.
“These ASOCs will connect to FireEye’s global network of ASOCs and complement what FireEye has in the United States and Europe,” he said.
“We are also setting up a data storage network in Asia Pacific to allow us to capture some of this [threat] data that is going to be held in the region for data integrity requirements.”
In addition to the ASOCs, Optus Business and the security vendor will launch a managed defence software solution for Optus enterprise and government customers. This will provide 24/7 monitoring, detection and containment of security threats.
According to Optus Business managing director John Paitaridis, the partnership will enhance the telco’s existing enterprise security services, which include managed firewall, distributed denial of service (DDoS), intrusion detection, content security and secure Internet gateways.
Optus and SingTel also recently underwent a restructure of its management team. Optus Australia country chief officer Paul O’Sullivan is now Optus chairman, and SingTel Group Digital L!fe CEO Allen Lew has taken on the role of Optus and Consumer Australia CEO, where he'll be based in Sydney. Lew replaces Kevin Russell who left Optus in March.
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