NEWS
IBM Invests $21M in its Security Operations Center in Costa Rica to boost capabilities and meet increased market demand
• The expansion triples its capacity and makes it the largest security operations center for IBM in Latin America, helping to further enable professionals to cover the cybersecurity skills’ gap across the region.
San Jose, February 12, 2019. IBM announced the company is investing US$21M in 2019 to expand its Security Services Center operations in Costa Rica, from where security events are monitored for hundreds of clients in more than 130 countries. The expansion also enables the growth of the existing capacity by three times, meeting the high demand of clients across the globe for leading-edge services in cybersecurity.
Historically, cybersecurity teams have been focused on detection and protection against cybersecurity incidents. However, as the threat landscape has evolved, organizations are now recognizing the need to plan and rehearse their response to security incidents as well. The 2018 Cost of a Data Breach Study1 found that companies that are able to respond to incidents effectively and remediate the event within 30 days can save over $1 million on the total cost of a data breach – yet less than 25% of professionals surveyed say their company has a coordinated incident response plan applied across the organization.
This expansion turns the Costa Rica security operation center into the largest one for the company in Latin America, adding new services such as incident response and forensics, managed detection and response and X-Force Threat Management to hundreds of clients around the world in a 24x7 regimen. The investment also includes physical expansion of current facilities and world-class training to local talents.
“The growth of cybersecurity technology and data combined with a growing skills shortage is creating an unexpected level of complexity for public and private organizations.”, says Ana Paula Assis, General Manager, IBM Latin America // Matías Haidabuer, Leader of the Cybersecurity Services Center in IBM Costa Rica. “With this investment, IBM reinforces its 15-year commitment to the country by expanding the outreach of our global cybersecurity capabilities driven by local, skilled talents, while providing world-class services to our clients”.
IBM first started its security operations in the country in 2014, within its Client Service Center located in Heredia.
The development of specialized skills
Digital transformation has led to the increase of cyberattacks on companies and their platforms, as well as the demand for professionals to protect them. Professional association ISC, which keeps figures on the talent gap, says the deficit is now 2.93 million globally. To address the cybersecurity skills gap, IBM works globally with universities to develop diverse cybersecurity skills, training and recruiting initiatives, as well as establishing various partnerships with schools in programs to attract women and millennials to the cybersecurity workforce.
Additionally, IBM offers the international IBM Security Learning Academy program, a platform available to the public to obtain certifications and knowledge of Cybersecurity:
https://www.securitylearningacademy.com/.
About IBM Security
IBM Security offers one of the most advanced and integrated portfolios of enterprise security products and services. The portfolio, supported by world-renowned IBM X-Force® research, enables organizations to effectively manage risk and defend against emerging threats. IBM operates one of the world's broadest security research, development and delivery organizations, monitors 60 billion security events per day in more than 130 countries, and has been granted more than 8,000 security patents worldwide. For more information, please check
www.ibm.com/security, follow IBMSecurity on Twitter or visit the IBM Security Intelligence blog.
Contact
Johanna Fernandez
Johanna.Fernandez@ibm.com
+506-61699243
