Symantec Corp has announced it plans to double the number of cyber security professionals at its Chennai Security Operations Center (SOC) to nearly 200 within a year. The move is part of its $50 million investment into expanding its reach across the world.
The Chennai SOC is Symantec Corp’s largest in the Asia-Pacific and Japan region, which is composed of Tokyo, Singapore and Sydney. Peter Sparkes, the senior director of Cyber Security Services at the company, says the significant expansion in its India operations was supported by the highly-skilled technical know-how currently available in the nation.
Symantec asserts there is an urgent need to increase its capacity to handle the growing rate of threats. It claims India is highly at risk from such issues, placing the country among the most vulnerable when it comes to cybersecurity. Apparently, its SOC monitoring showed the subcontinent had received 38391 attacks by noon on the day of the event.
PTI reports the figure is a 3rd of the 97913 threats found in total until that point of time across Asia. Symantec says the fresh infusion of $50 million will be partly directed towards setting up a new Singapore SOC, with all four locations coordinating with each other to support customers across the globe.
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Sparkes pointed out that this synergy helped it to maintain its operations even when 30% of its staff was affected by the heavy rains in Chennai. Symantec also plans to further expand its Tokyo branch and build new centers in Europe during the course of the coming year.
Symantec believes the kind of advanced attacks commonly seen today cannot be handled via technology alone, as firms require experts to take quick action in the face of critical threats.