AWS now accredited to run protected workloads in Australia

Australia’s government agencies and private sector can now use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to store and process sensitive information held in the AWS Sydney region, paving the way for wider adoption of public cloud services by security-conscious organisations.

This follows the accreditation of AWS by the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) as a cloud supplier that can handle data at the protected security classification level, through 42 services spanning compute, storage, network, database, security, analytics, application integration, management and governance.

With the protected workloads certification, AWS said organisations can now take advantage of all the security benefits without paying a price premium, or needing to modify their existing applications or environments.

Besides AWS, other cloud services, such as Microsoft Azure and Dimension Data’s Protected Government Cloud, have earned the same certification in the ACSC’s certified cloud services list (CCSL), which aims to streamline procurement of cloud services and provide certainty to agencies on the status of certifications.

Alastair MacGibbon, head of the ACSC, said the certifications will assure Australian government agencies that services in the CCSL will meet stringent Australian government security requirements.

“The ACSC recommends customers review the certification documentation and make sound risk-based decisions when choosing a cloud service,” he added.

The AWS certification was welcomed by public sector organisations such as the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), which is already using AWS for cloud.gov.au, a secure cloud-based platform for hosting website applications that helps government agencies build digital services quickly.

“Cloud is a critical part of the DTA’s whole of government transformation agenda,” said DTA CEO Randall Brugeaud. “The protected certification of AWS makes it easier for agencies to leverage cloud services.”

To Nuix, an Australian company that produces a software platform for indexing, searching, analysing and extracting knowledge from unstructured data, AWS’s accreditation to run protected workloads will benefit its customers without compromising business-critical workflows and performance, said its group CEO, Rod Vawdrey.

Describing the AWS accreditation as a major milestone for existing customers, Peter Moore, regional managing director for worldwide public sector at AWS Asia-Pacific, said the accreditation will also generate new opportunities for AWS partners.

These include smaller AWS partners such as 2pi Software, which can now offer protected level secure cloud services to government customers, creating regional jobs in the process, according to its CEO, Liam O’Duibhir.