Leidos Australia scores AU$16m BoM data management contract
Summary
Leidos Australia has been awarded a data management platform contract by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) as part of the Bureaus wider IT transformation program. Leidos Australia is the same IT provider contracted by the Australian Tax Office (ATO) to deliver a modernisation project that will include a new IT service management platform, service integration and management model, as well as enhance the current information technology infrastructure library processes. BoM also awarded Unisys a three-year contract valued at approximately AU$16.48 million to design, build, and manage new cloud infrastructure and upgrade its wide area network to support current weather services. The last incident saw a 33-year-old man arrested and charged by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) for allegedly manipulating the computer programs at the BoM to mine cryptocurrency while being employed as a government IT contractor. The BoM CEO and director of meteorology Dr Andrew Johnson also confirmed during Senate Estimates in May 2018 that the bureau had suspended a third-party for serving up "fake news" advertising material on its website that was connected to bitcoin-based scams.