EY, provider of assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services, has set up a facility for monitoring information security threats (MIST) in Chennai. Analysts in the centre remotely monitor clients’ infrastructure on real time basis for any security breach and alert them to take remedial action.

This is the first such centre for EY globally with one more almost ready in the US, and another planned in the Ireland, Devendra Parulekar, Partner, Information Security, Advisory Services, EY, told newspersons.

The monitoring system sits on top the preventive control like anti-virus or firewall security that clients have in place. Analysts at EY can also do ‘ethical hacking’ on behalf of clients to see whether all the necessary controls are in place.

Parulekar said at present six clients in sectors like e-commerce, manufacturing, FMCG and telecom are using the MIST service. The centre at present has 33 employees, he said. Terry Thomas, Innovation Centre Leader and Partner – Operations, Advisory Services, EY, said that a comprehensive information security programme consisting of prevention, detection and response mechanism. Companies tend to focus their investment only on preventive technologies, leaving a significant gap around detective and incident response capabilities, he said.

Major obstacle

Over half of the respondents of EY’s Global Information Security Survey 2014 believed that a sophisticated attack would go undetected in their organisation. Similarly, around 53 per cent of them acknowledged the paucity of skilled information security resources as one of the main obstacles.

The monitoring facility aims to support clients in identifying and responding to such threats proactively and complement their existing capabilities with skilled professionals, he said.

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