Macquarie Cloud Services, part of Macquarie Technology Group, has launched the Macquarie Cloud Services security operations centre (SOC) for Australasian universities and research institutions, complimenting its CAUDIT Cloud capability.
The firm said the rollout provided an opportunity for institutions to mature cybersecurity capability and address a recent gap in cybersecurity capability across the sector.
Ahead of an October deadline for Australian universities and research institutions to strengthen their defences, the Macquarie Cloud Services SOC has been purpose-built for the higher education and research sector, building on the Australian cloud services provider’s key experience providing managed security services to 42 per cent of Federal Government agencies.
“It will provide sovereign, onshore, 24x7x365 support by government data-cleared engineers and focus on major threats facing higher education institutions,” said the company. “These include insider threats, nation state threat actors, and monitoring legacy ICT equipment more easily navigated by the cybercriminal underworld.”
The Macquarie Cloud Services SOC will be available to access and procure through the Council of Australasian University Directors of Information Technology (CAUDIT), the peak body for ICT in Australia’s higher education and research sectors. CAUDIT Members will also be able to benefit from zero-cost migration in less than one month and a hold on managed service fees until after the October deadline has passed, avoiding duplicate costs during the transition.
Specifically, the SOC will help third-level institutions maintain compliance with all relevant security clearances and frameworks built into the service, including ISO/IEC 27001, PCI-DSS, IRAP, and Essential Eight (E8). The SOC is securely contained within the company’s data centre campus in Sydney and uses AI to reduce alert noise and accelerate investigation.
“Australia’s third-level institutions deal with a range of threats, from malicious or accidental insider breaches to nation states looking to compromise one of our top export industries or researchers supporting healthcare, defence, and other critical industries,” said Karl Napper, Head of CAUDIT Cloud, Macquarie Cloud Services.
“Universities need to migrate given the October deadline, but there’s an opportunity in that to take stock of their environments and consider what legacy systems they can upgrade, move to more modern security frameworks such as Zero Trust, and ultimately raise the security posture of an entire industry that matters so much to the economy,” said Napper.
