ATO renews cyber security partnership with Macquarie Government

The Australian Taxation Office has renewed its ongoing agreement with Macquarie Government to keep Australia’s taxation infrastructure secure.

Macquarie Government — which is a part of the Macquarie Telecom Group — has had the ATO cyber security contract since 2019, and will now continue to serve the agency through to 2024. As of this month, the updated contract is worth a healthy $86 million.

“We’re proud to play a key role in keeping one of Australia’s most fundamental government agencies secure, at a time when Australians are looking for greater assurance their critical government data and the institutions that store and protect it are fully secure,” said Aidan Tudehope, managing director of Macquarie Government.

The agreement means the ATO will be taking advantage of a range of Macquarie’s services. These include cloud services, digital event monitoring, and providing the ATO with its own secure internet gateway, and management of the same. Macquarie’s 24x7x365 Security Operations Centre (SOC) will also be on call.

“For the ATO, Macquarie’s SOC provides a full inspection of internet traffic flows, content, and images to meet ATO policies, the government’s Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF) and Information Security Manual (ISM) controls,” Macquarie said in an announcement.

Last year, Macquarie Government saw both its data centre and cloud operations gain “Certified Strategic” status from Australia’s Digital Transformation Agency.

The renewed agreement comes at a time of growth for Macquarie Government. The company has over 220 security-cleared engineers to call upon, on top of opening a new, $17 million Canberra-based data centre in 2021.

The company now serves about 42 per cent of the Australian government’s security needs.

David Hollingworth

David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.