Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development Selects IBM Security to Protect Private Customer Information

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, Nov. 18, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED) announced today that it has chosen an IBM (NYSE: IBM) managed security services solution to ensure protection of its information systems infrastructure and customer data. Using sophisticated predictive analytics technology, the solution will help anticipate and mitigate threats and any possible breaches, providing higher efficiency and productivity to the department's operations.

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The IBM managed security services will facilitate around-the-clock monitoring and alerts to investigate and escalate incidents effectively while delivering threat assessments of the severity of potential issues and enabling optimization software to enhance the information security levels for ADDED.

HE Ghanem Al Fandi Al Mazrouei, the Executive Director of Support Services Sector of the Department of Economic Development said, "With the increasing shift to digital technologies and the proliferation of digital data, the security of information and electronic systems became an increasingly crucial issue for individuals as well as organizations and government bodies."

"The protection of confidential information and data from clients and partners of the Department of Economic Development is one of our important priorities, so we engaged with IBM to ensure a higher level of security and improve services provided for our strategic partners," Al Mazrouei said.

The Department of Economic Development represented by Abu Dhabi Business Center, cooperates with over 40 local and federal government entities to provide services for business owners, allowing them to establish, run and develop their organizations. Previously, owners often had to visit different entities to start their businesses. To efficiently support its customers, the department wanted to build a single point of contact and a more efficient system. This however created the challenge of managing vast amounts of data from multiple sources and ensuring confidentiality and compliance with government security regulations.

To achieve its goals, ADDED collaborated with IBM to design, build and operate a managed security services solution that will allow the department to consolidate data from all related systems and devices, delivering high visibility of security incidents. ADDED will leverage IBM's developed infrastructure, experience and expertise to monitor its security environment. IBM's technical support services team will also provide a round-the-clock maintenance services and onsite support.

"Security threats and targeted attacks are on the increase in the region and globally. Therefore it is important for organizations to take a proactive approach to protect their infrastructure and information," said Amr Refaat, General Manager, IBM Middle East and Pakistan. "IBM's security solution for ADDED is an excellent example of how organizations can improve their IT security in ways that not only allow innovation but help accelerate it."

IBM will leverage its X-Force® Protection System managed security services infrastructure to assist analysts with the aggregation, correlation, analysis and prioritization of security logs and events. IBM will also use its Q1Radar security solution, which gathers information from multiple sources and using analytics identifies potential threats and breaches.

With the help of its global infrastructure, IBM analyzes more than 15 billion security events each day from devices located in more than 130 countries. This level of visibility provides IBM with a truly global view of the security landscape and assists IBM security analysts with the ability to identify emerging threats quickly and track trends across geographies, industries and systems.

About IBM Managed Security Services

Please visit: http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/en/it-services/managed-security-services.html

About the IBM X-Force Trend and Risk Report

The IBM X-Force Trend and Risk Report is an annual assessment of the security landscape, designed to help clients better understand the latest security risks, and stay ahead of these threats. In the first six months of 2013, IBM X-Force was able to:

• Analyze 4,100 new security vulnerabilities
• Scan 900 Million new Webpages and images
• Create 27 Million new or updated entries in the IBM web filter database
• Insert 180 Million new, updated, or deleted signatures in the IBM spam filter database

The report gathers facts from numerous intelligence sources, including its database of more than 73,000 computer security vulnerabilities, its global Web crawler and its international spam collectors, and the real-time monitoring of 15 billion events every day for approximately 4,000 clients in more than 130 countries. These 15 billion events monitored each day, are a result of the work done in IBM's 10 global security operations centers, which is provided as a managed security service to clients. To view the full X-Force 2013 Mid-Year Trend and Risk Report, please visit www.ibm.com/security/xforce. 

Press Contact:

Kevin Acocella 
IBM Media Relations 
917-842-4680 
[email protected]

Tod Freeman 
IBM Media Relations 
415-320-5893 
[email protected]

Jumana Akkawi 
External Relations Leader, IBM Middle East 
+971 4 4498353 
[email protected]

SOURCE IBM