Cloud
Security
April 7, 2023 By Donald Kneitel
Arnold Simson
Tina Belani
3 min read

IBM Public Cloud has continued to expand its Australian IRAP PROTECTED Cloud offerings with the addition of IRAP-assessed Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) products.

These services also are part of the IBM Cloud for Financial Services offering available in Australia. The IRAP assessment was based against the Australian Government’s Information Security Manual (ISM) guidance for 772 controls. IBM had previously achieved IRAP PROTECTED status for a core set of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings and IBM’s Cloud Hyper Protect Crypto Service.

What is IRAP?

The Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) is an Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) initiative to provide high-quality information and communications technology (ICT) security assessment services to government agencies. Administered by the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), IRAP assessments help government agencies verify that appropriate controls are in place for addressing ICT security requirements detailed in the Australian Government Information Security Manual (ISM) produced by the ASD, which includes the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s Essential Eight controls.

IRAP PROTECTED cloud services

The IaaS Classic services previously completed an IRAP PROTECTED assessment in August 2021 against the April 2021 version of the ISM. The same April 2021 ISM version was used to conduct the review of the additional VPC and PaaS services.

For Government agencies and organisations looking to leverage IRAP PROTECTED compliance, IBM now provides this capability to core IaaS/VPC and PaaS services that are available across IBM Cloud’s Australia Multi-Zone Region Data Centres. These facilities are SCEC Zone 3 certified, and IBM is a Strategic Certified Cloud Provider under the Australian Government’s Hosting Certification Framework. In addition, IBM provides a broad range of certification capabilities, including ISO 27K, CSA STAR, PCI DSS and SOC 1/2/3 across the global MZR/data centre footprint, which includes the three Australian data centres. More information on those compliance capabilities is available on IBM.com.

Organisations looking to mitigate risk will be able to leverage these newly assessed services that are also part of the IBM Cloud for Financial Services, with several additional capabilities that can help reduce risk for Financial Services and Government organisations. For Critical Industries, the IRAP assessment provides substantiation that IBM Cloud meets the Cyber Framework requirements of the Security of Critical Infrastructure (SoCI) Act, with our HCF Certification addressing the broader risk management provisions.

By engaging with IBM as an IRAP PROTECTED cloud services provider, Government agencies can be assured that IBM is actively addressing and maintaining the security guidance requirements detailed in the ISM. This can help organisations accelerate their cloud adoption and transformation journey by addressing the key requirements for regulated workloads. Coupled with IBM’s broad portfolio of cloud services, hybrid cloud and consulting, these IaaS, VPC and PaaS services provide the foundation for a robust set of capabilities that can support sensitive workloads at the IRAP PROTECTED level.

New VPC and PaaS services in scope

  • IBM Cloud App ID
  • IBM Cloud Block Storage for Virtual Private Cloud
  • IBM Cloud Block Storage Snapshots for VPC
  • IBM Cloud Backup for VPC
  • IBM Cloud Code Engine
  • IBM Cloud Container Registry
  • IBM Cloud Direct Link Connect “2.0”
  • IBM Cloud Direct Link Dedicated “2.0”
  • IBM Cloud DNS Services
  • IBM Cloud Flow Logs for VPC
  • IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
  • Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud
  • IBM Cloud Object Storage
  • IBM Cloud Satellite
  • IBM Cloud Schematics
  • IBM Cloud Transit Gateway
  • IBM Cloud Virtual Private Cloud
  • IBM Cloud Virtual Private Cloud – Load Balancer for VPC: Application Load Balancer
  • IBM Cloud Virtual Private Cloud – Load Balancer for VPC: Network Load Balancer
  • IBM Cloud Virtual Private – VPN for VPC Site-to-Site Gateway
  • IBM Cloud Virtual Server for VPC – Auto Scale for VPC
  • IBM Cloud Virtual Server for VPC – Dedicated Host for VPC
  • IBM Cloud Virtual Private Endpoint for VPC
  • IBM Event Streams for IBM Cloud (Enterprise)

Renewal of service

  • IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Crypto Services

Learn more

View the services in scope for IRAP PROTECTED and request the IBM Cloud IRAP PROTECTED package.

Donald Kneitel
Compliance Product Manager
Arnold Simson
CISO, IBM Cloud Australia
Tina Belani
IBM Cloud Compliance Program Director

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