Security | News

Saudi Ministry of Ed Takes IT Security Protection from IBM and Mobily

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 05/07/14

IBM and a mobile provider will be delivering IT security services to the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Education. The Ministry has chosen Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) and IBM to handle managed and cloud security services through an IBM security operations center that will be hosted in a Mobily data center.

Mobily and IBM will work with the ministry to assess its IT and data security needs and expect to use predictive analytics technology in helping the Ministry anticipate and reduce threats and breaches. The Ministry handles strategic issues related to pre-primary, elementary, intermediate and secondary schools in the country for its five million Pre-K-12 students.

"The recent increasing rate of security threats from the adoption of new and existing technologies has raised awareness for security protection and management. Through the alliance with IBM, we want to ensure the highest level of security for the Ministry...and our customers in the kingdom," said Marwan Al-Ahmadi, Mobily's chief business officer.

Among the products to be used in the implementation are IBM's QRadar security intelligence platform and X-Force Protection System. QRadar provides a unified approach for dealing with security information and event management, incident forensics and other vulnerabilities. X-Force is a managed service that continually analyzes security events on client devices around the world.