VeriSign sets up Australian security centre

E-commerce security vendor, VeriSign, has opened its first Asia-Pacific-based Security Operations Centre (SOC) in Melbourne.

The facility, to be operated by seven newly recruited IT security specialists, will provide back-end security monitoring and analyst services to its Australian customer base.

VeriSign executive manager for Asia-Pacific, Brian Gardner, said the new centre was part of the vendor's plans to provide a suite of managed security services (MSS).

"The issue for us was that Australian companies like to have services provided in Australia," he said. "They like local support and local people monitoring their security."

Gardner said VeriSign had already invested more than $600,000 into both the technology and associated running costs of the centre, including staff and training. It will be linked to the vendor's four other SOCs globally.

"We're not going to be aggressive in terms of revenue yet: within a year to 18 months however, we are looking to break even [on our investment]," he said. "Hopefully it will ramp up - it is very much a scalable business."

Gardner said VeriSign already had a number of clients teed up to utilise the SOC.

Typical customers included banks and government agencies, as well as mid to large enterprises.

Although VeriSign deals directly with the majority of its customers, Gardner said it was also keen to build up its reseller base to on-sell the services provided by the new SOC.

Currently, telcos and ISPs, including local partner Optus, represent the bulk of its reseller channel globally. However, the company was keen to hear from integrators also looking to expand their offerings to customers, he said.

Gardner said the vendor was in discussions with several of its global reseller partners to extend their relationships into the local market.

All VeriSign partners would earn a margin on services they sell through to clients, and would own the client from the front end. The MSS is sold on an annuity model, with charges dependant on the number of devices being used within a customer's organisation.

"For integrators, it is important that they can offer a full range of services without having to make the investments themselves," he said.

The SOC was also vendor agnostic, Gardner said, and allowed resellers to bundle the MSS with a variety of security solutions.

"The benefit to resellers is that they don't need to source security staff or build up their infrastructure," he said. "We have five SOCs globally - they would be signing up to our back-end knowledge."