TrustCSI aims to harden the soft IT underbelly of Chinese firms
CPCNet, a wholly owned subsidiary of Citic Pacific, has joined the ranks of specialist service providers looking to protect computer networks in Greater China from growing security threats.
The company last week teamed up with United States-based information security firm Cybertrust to offer their TrustCSI services to companies of all sizes from the second half of this year.
Stephen Ho Wai-chung, chief executive at CPCNet, said the new services would be driven from its Security Operations Centre in Hong Kong, due to open at the end of next month.
'Many companies in China are suffering from growing pains and are unprepared and overstretched when it comes to protecting their information technology assets,' Mr Ho said.
'TrustCSI offers a fast and cost-effective way to harden the soft IT underbelly of companies in China.'
Last October, a joint survey conducted by Accenture and IT publication InformationWeek, of 2,540 US and 700 Chinese business technology and security professionals, found mainland firms suffered more viruses, worms, denial-of-service attacks and identity thefts than their US counterparts. Worse, these companies faced those attacks on limited budgets with few protective measures in place.
The new TrustCSI portfolio will deliver a set of services, including: Compliance Management Services (Trust-C), Managed Security Services (Trust-S) and Forensic Investigation Services (Trust-I). When combined, these enable enterprise users to gain visibility and control of their information security risks.
'Security is essential to any business operation, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution,' said John Becker, chief executive at Cybertrust, headquartered in Herndon, Virginia.
'Through CPCNet we are able to partner with customers in China to provide customised and optimised security services that meet their individual needs to secure critical data, protect identities and achieve ongoing compliance in a way that is best for their businesses.'
The TrustCSI operations centre is being built in collaboration with Cybertrust. It is expected to complement CPCNet's existing carrier-grade network operations centre.
Cybertrust is training staff and creating the necessary policies, procedures and processes to ensure service delivery to high-quality and world-class standards. CPCNet will manage the security operations centre and provide first-line TrustCSI customer support.
TrustCSI is supposed to be vendor and technology-neutral, which means the services can be adapted to any type of IT infrastructure.
The partners' timing has been carefully chosen. The results of an International Data Corp survey in March on the mainland found that attitudes to security in large enterprises were maturing and firms were taking practical approaches when making IT security investments.
