Malaysia Airlines strengthens security

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's national carrier, Malaysia Airlines System (MAS), said that by using Symantec security solutions it has improved IT compliance by 15 per cent within three months.

Malaysia Airlines group IT chief information officer Faridah Abdul Rahman said that by using the pay per usage technology model, it eliminated the need to spend upfront costs on software, hardware, professional services, maintenance and training. "This utility model collectively helped the organisation lower the total cost of ownership and realise faster return on investment. "

"This has enabled us to achieve better visibility and intelligence across our organisation, giving us the confidence that our information security and compliance requirements are under control," said Faridah. "In addition, the compliance assessments have been increasingly efficient and diligent."

Malaysia Airlines, the national carrier of Malaysia and one of Asia's largest, flies nearly 50,000 passengers daily to some 100 destinations worldwide across six continents.

"The enhancement of our IT security, compliance and risk management environment is consistent with our goal to be a Five Star Value Carrier by improving process efficiency and adaptability of business operations," she said.

She added that with the right software and services in place, Malaysia Airlines was able to free up staff resources to focus on its core business, and gain knowledge of best practices regarding IT processes and carry out key operations reliably on a daily basis.

"Today, Malaysia Airlines conducts compliance assessments on at least 150 servers on a weekly basis and our security and compliance reports are produced easily and with much greater accuracy," she said.

In addition, she said the implementation, which began in early 2008, was designed based on the organisation's requirement for a dynamic view of information security intelligence to help proactively identify and mitigate risks associated with critical operational functions, potential threats and vulnerabilities. "Malaysia Airlines also needed to ensure that corporate policies were enforced and acted upon in line with its best practices incorporated using ISO27001, ITIL and CoBiT standards."

Symantec Malaysia managing director Suzie Tan said: "Based on these requirements, Symantec designed an integrated security management solution based on Symantec Security Information Manager, Symantec Control Compliance Suite and Symantec DeepSight Threat Management System. Malaysia Airlines also engaged Symantec Residency Services, providing onsite experts to augment the airline's IT staff for routine, critical and executive-level activities."

"With the growing cost in managing IT security and the increasing complexity of online threats, we see the need to provide customers an array of options that leverage the deep expertise and best practices Symantec has developed over many years," said Tan. "Our relationship with Malaysia Airlines demonstrates the breadth of our technologies and the unparalleled insights on security that we can extend to our customers."

(From Computerworld Malaysia)