Leading carrier-neutral data provider center is IBM’s first managed security services alliance in Malaysia; to provide high data security with holistic management insights at competitive market cost

KUALA LUMPUR, 7 July 2014 – The AIMS Group (AIMS) today announced the first strategic alliance with IBM to roll out IBM’s Managed Security Services (MSS) in Malaysia.

AIMS – which is Southeast Asia’s leading carrier-neutral data services provider, will offer its existing and new customers an enhanced range of high quality, managed security services from IBM, which is the world’s leading computing giant, in this area of enterprise-level IT and security.

This initiative addresses the need to help small and medium companies in Malaysia access enterprise grade security infrastructure services delivered by security experts.

“Cyber security is a serious business regardless of the company’s size” said Chiew Kok Hin, CEO , AIMS Group. “According to a Ponemon Institute study in 2013, a business could lose as much as USD136 per lost record of data in the event of a cyber security breach. However, enterprise level security can be too costly or hard to manage for an SME (Subject Matter Expert), which is why AIMS has teamed up with IBM to address this need.”

He explains further, “With this new partnership, AIMS’s clients will be able to select a managed security service that suits their business IT requirements. Our customers can now benefit from high quality services and not have to invest in personnel or security infrastructure, opting for a one-stop service provider to manage their security infrastructure and security policies. With MSS, customers will not only have world class enterprise level security but can expect to save up to 50 percent on the operation costs that an in-house security deployment and management will cost.”

Leveraging the IBM Security Framework, AIMS will offer the new Managed Security Services delivered via a cloud-based Virtual Security Operations Center (VSOC). This platform provides customers full transparency and insight into their environment as well as a view on normal usage patterns. Some of the benefits available include:

• Reduced costs and minimized complexities
• Better Managed overall risk with an integrated view and holistic dashboard for greater visibility and security intelligence
• High Quality managed and monitoring services delivered through proven processes, integrated technology
• 24-7 technical expertise from AIMS

“AIMS customers receive through IBM virtual support, the ability to integrate the necessary information to give a holistic view of the security surrounding their data assets. We will provide 24-7 technical expertise from our virtual team of technical experts that will be aided by IBM’s intelligence reports, which are constantly updated to reflect the ever expanding cyber security threats that happen every minute,” adds Chiew.

Kris Lovejoy, the General Manager of IBM Worldwide Security Services says, “We chose AIMS as a provider of IBM Security Services because they are a market leader in Malaysia. AIMS has successfully built an integrated ecosystem of various communities together with their diverse client portfolio ranging from large corporations, to SMEs across industries as diverse as aviation, hotel, telecommunication, financial services, online businesses, oil and gas, retail and content providers.”

“There’s half a billion reasons why businesses need to prioritise data security. Our research indicates that more than half a billion personal data such as name, credit card numbers and passwords were leaked in 2013 alone due to online security breaches. By introducing a cost competitive MSS, we hope to minimise the loss of data amongst businesses in Malaysia,” ends Lovejoy.

The security offerings available span across multiple security domains including vulnerability management, application scanning, network-based firewall, IDS/IPS, UTM, secure email/web gateway, hosted security event and log management, web / DDoS protection, and Managed SIEM.