New York, September 30, 2019 – The International Computing Centre (UNICC) has been named an honouree of a 2020 CSO50 Award from IDG’s CSO. This prestigious honour is bestowed upon a select group of organizations that have demonstrated that their security projects or initiatives have created outstanding business value and thought leadership for their companies. See CSO press release here.
The CSO50 Award is a recognized mark of risk and security excellence. The award is given to organizations and companies rather than individuals, making it an honor in which everyone on your security team can take pride. Client and Partner Organizations who have similarly won this award include UNDP and the Asian Development Bank.
UNICC’s Partners have requested a new approach to handling cyber security risks. UNICC has responded with new tools and new processes to support flexible arrangements by the development of a cyber security knowledge hub at UNICC, with its expert, certified staff. UNICC also brings 48 years of experience working within the United Nations landscape and offers the same UN privileges and immunities to this hub.
Sameer Chauhan, Director, UNICC
The CSO50 Award is a recognized mark of risk and security excellence. The award is given to organizations and companies rather than individuals, making it an honor in which everyone on your security team can take pride. Client and Partner Organizations who have similarly won this award include UNDP and the Asian Development Bank. Judging criteria included innovation (the extent to which your organization used security in a new way) and business results value (the measurable impact your project has had on your organization’s business).
Other CSO50 honourees include Adobe, ADP, AFLAC, Brigham Young University, Cities of Gaineville and Greensboro, Equifax, Expedia Group, Genpact, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, HP Inc., Kansas State University, Microsoft, PayPal, Prudential Financial, Inc., Q2 Software, Inc., SAP SE, St. Louis Cardinals, LLC, Visa Inc., Webster Bank and others.
Common secure information security hub for the UN family
UNICC introduced a Continuous Security Improvement Suite several years ago offering cyber security tools to a handful of UN Agencies, including infrastructure for UN field offices with security controls, a threat analysis tool, and governance and operational solutions for smaller UN Agencies to support ISMS standards and processes.
Its singular success has led UNICC to scale into a comprehensive global solution, now including over 30 Agencies and growing. With tools in place, UNICC initiated a Common Secure Hub for the UN family, including a UN Security Operations Centre, SIEM, an information-sharing network and comprehensive cyber security solutions across the spectrum.
We have worked to build a Common Secure Information Security Hub for the UN family, with over 20 staff and 30 Clients today in areas such as threat intelligence networking, a UN Security Operations Centre (CSOC) and Incident Event Management (CSIEM), PKI digital identity services, advisory services, governance, and operational support and our CSOC located in UNICC’s Centre of Excellence in Valencia, Spain.
Tima Soni, Chief, Information Security Services, UNICC
UNICC, as a not-for-profit UN entity, is supporting the UN Reform’s mandate for Agencies to utilize shared services for maximum impact and greater efficiency and effectiveness across UN Agencies. Clients are asking for more business value for their cyber postures, including mitigating the risks of negative reputation, loss of information, exposure to complex cyber-attacks, sharing timely, relevant, actionable cyber security threats, and incident information. The fundamental business driver for this innovative cyber security hub has been the interest and demand from the Client base, which ranges from large UN organizations like UNDP, UNICEF and UNHCR to smaller Agencies like WMO, WTO and ILO.
The Hub provides a community for everything cyber in the United Nations – oversight and governance solutions, an Inter-Agency intel-sharing community of practice, as well as operational components, information security awareness, SWIFT security assessments and security incident response.
UNICC maintains strategic partnerships with Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, ID2020, Cloud Security Alliance, Center for Internet Security, Hyperledger, SWIFT, UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism and FIRST organizations, bringing the best of long-term agreements, partnership opportunities and best practices sharing with UNICC’s 60 Clients.
What is innovative is the use and support of new technologies (PKI for shared digital identity management, Robotic-Process Automation, AI, open source and agile development and block chain are some of new technologies UNICC is offering).
What is even more innovative is the establishment of inter-Agency hubs where different Agencies leverage the same, shared solutions. Historically UN Agencies work in silos with their own budget and business solutions – the Hub brings shared solutions to provide maximum efficiency and cost savings with a brand-new innovative approach.
About UNICC
The International Computing Centre (UNICC) has 48 years of experience providing Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services to United Nations programmes, funds and entities. Its mission is to provide ICT services to the United Nations family, maximise the sharing of infrastructure, systems and skills and generate economies of scale to benefit its over 60 Clients.
