IBM takes its security intelligence tech to the cloud

IBM is moving its Security Intelligence technology, IBM Qradar, to the cloud, with the aim of making it easier for companies to prioritise real threats and free up critical resources to fight cyberattacks.

The new services are available to clients through a cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) model, with optional IBM Security Managed Services.

According to the 2014 IBM Cyber Index, organisations globally deal with an average of 91 million potential security events every year, creating vast volumes of data that need to be stored and analysed.

IBM says cloud-based threat monitoring and analytics provides more simplicity with a hosted deployment with advanced analytics capabilities and the expertise from a security services provider needed to monitor today's hybrid IT environments. 

IBM's two new cloud-based services are IBM Security Intelligence on Cloud and Intelligent Log Management on Cloud.

The former aims to help organisations determine if security-related events are simple anomalies or potential threats.

It is built as a cloud service using IBM QRadar and allows enterprises to correlate security event data with threat information from over 500 supported data sources for devices, systems, and applications.

This is complemented by more than 1,500 pre-defined reports for use cases such as compliance, vulnerability management and security incident response.

Furthermore, the integration of QRadar with IBM's recently announced cloud-based X-Force Exchange gives security teams volumes of historical and real time threat intelligence.

Intelligent Log Management on Cloud aims to simplify security and compliance data collection and reporting needs.

It's powered by IBM QRadar technology and uses analytics as well as a hosted, multi-tenant technology to deliver comprehensive compliance with real-time correlation and anomaly detection capabilities.

Through support for more than 400 platforms, security managers can also capture logs from nearly any device in their security operation.

"Organisations are facing a security data tsunami that can overwhelm even the most sophisticated enterprise's security program," says Jason Corbin, IBM Security vice president product management and strategy.

"Security leaders are telling us they want increased visibility through the cloud and control throughout their hybrid IT environments.

"The option of doing predictive analytics via the cloud gives security teams the flexibility to bring in skills, innovation and information on demand across all of their security environments.

These offerings are backed and delivered through IBM's platform of managed security services, which handles more than 15 billion security events per day for over 4,000 clients around the world.