Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore was formally presented with the ISO 27001 certification last Friday for its Data Centre Matrix. FutureGov was invited to attend the award ceremony at its office.

The certification specifies an Information Security Management System (ISMS), a suite of activities around the management of information security risks. It is an overarching management framework through which the organisation identifies, analyses and addresses its information security risks.

The ISMS ensures that the security arrangements are fine-tuned to keep pace with changes to the security threats, vulnerabilities and business impacts.

Besides being awarded the ISO 27001 certification by TÜV SÜD PSB, A*STAR also won the ‘Information Security’ award in this year’s FutureGov Awards, which attracted 650 nominations and 83 finalists over the region.

“We want to thank all our ecosystem of partners and the Data Centre team who have worked very hard to achieve this certification. We will continue to work hard to better facilitate our researchers and work towards our vision of an innovation-driven Singapore. We are in the process of upgrading our data centre with an innovative storage system and enhancing our super computing facility,” said Dr John Kan, CIO of A*STAR.

“Congratulations to A*STAR for this achieving the ISO 270001 certification and winning the FutureGov Award. By being ISO 27001 certified, the agency is tested and proven to have addressed its organisation’s information security risks and threats. It has successfully designed and implemented a coherent and comprehensive suite of information security controls,” said Richard Hong, CEO of TÜV SÜD PSB, a service provider for a comprehensive and integrated suite of product testing, inspection and certification services.

“With the advent of new technologies, we are going to be exposed to more vulnerabilities and threats. Having our processes and systems tested is challenging but important, so we are very pleased that this team has put themselves forward to be audited. We will continue to push forward for more of our systems and processes to be tested for compliance with worldwide standards,” commented Suresh Sachi, Deputy Managing Director of A*STAR.