The ATO, also known as Australian Taxation Office, the principal revenue collector of Australia, has reportedly handed over a $20 million contract to Macquarie Telecom, a renowned Australian telecommunications company. As per the deal, the company would provide cybersecurity services and SIG (secure internet gateway) to the government body for a minimum of three years.
Macquarie Telecom stated that the secure internet gateway (SIG) is a very important service that safely manages the connection that exists between the internet and ATO’s IT environments. The service helps protect the agency’s IT environments from cyber security threats.
The deal comes about a year after ATO went searching for a SIG provider that could replace its SAGE (Secure ATO Gateway Environment) to support the agency’s present and business transaction needs of the future.
SAGE presently supports approximately 25,000 ATO employees, nearly six million myGov accounts connected to ATO Online as well as an average of over 8 million emails that are sent every month.
Under the new contract, Macquarie Telecom would facilitate the ATO with cyber security services and SIG from its security operations center starting from next year.
The contract would also utilize the telecommunications company’s sovereign data centers as well as the company’s Australian Signals Directorate-certified cloud computing platforms.
Moving from a SIG that is on-premises with only one entry point to another that is situated off-premises and offers multiple entry points that go into all of the agency’s environments was said to be the key goal for the acquisition.
Macquarie Telecom also stated that it would invest in upgrading its government secure internet gateway to support the contract.
Following the agreement, the telco hopes its capex for present fiscal year to be from $61 million to $64 million.
The ATO further looks to replace its massive managed network services deal which is currently with Optus. This deal would expire by June 2020, the government body has searched in the industry for the initial of six novel managed network services previously this month.
Other bundles that are to be tested in the market over next two year period include the agency’s $358 million computing contract with Leidos. This agreement was recently extended till November 2021 with it costing the ATO $87 million.
Source credit: https://www.itnews.com.au/news/ato-hands-macquarie-telecom-20m-internet-gateway-deal-535917