The US state of Virginia – sometimes called the Commonwealth of Virginia – has awarded a lucrative cybersecurity contract to IT company Atos.
The multi-year relationship is valued at $120 million and will involve Atos providing “advanced cybersecurity services” for the Virginia Information Technology Agency.
VITA, which supports the commonwealth by providing cybersecurity, IT infrastructure services and IT governance, is implementing an IT modernisation strategy.
The plan is to deliver “secure, agile, high-quality services at cost-competitive rates”. The commonwealth requires a cybersecurity solution that can keep pace with business change of executive branch agencies.
Atos says it will provide a scalable cybersecurity platform that provides a range of business-critical functions, including threat detection, vulnerability management, security information and event management, and endpoint security.
The services will be delivered via the Atos Prescriptive Security model to help consolidate threat sources and progressively learn new behaviours to help eradicate threats before they occur.
Mike Watson, chief information security officer of the Commonwealth and deputy chief information officer at VITA, says: “The complexity and sophistication of today's attacks continue to increase.
“To counter these attacks we must use the latest technologies and remain flexible in how we deploy such products and services. The Atos Prescriptive Security service provides superior performance and reliability that keeps the data entrusted to us by Virginia's citizens and businesses protected.”
Atos' Prescriptive Security solution is powered by the company's own Atos Bullion x 86 high-end servers, and the company says threats are “rapidly detected and can be remediated in near real-time using automation and orchestration”.
Chad Harris, president, North America operations, Atos, says: “Atos Prescriptive Security, which utilises automation and computing power, has a real advantage over the traditional way of just throwing overwhelmed, isolated teams of security personnel at the problem.
“Our unique architecture provides VITA and the Commonwealth of Virginia a solution that can readily grow with business and cybersecurity requirements over time.”
By entering into the agreement with Atos, VITA says it can now take advantage of the latest technology to protect citizen data and provide a safe, secure technology environment that enables state agencies to accomplish their respective missions.
