MALVERN'S QinetiQ technology company has launched what is claimed to be Europe's most advanced computer security centre.

Among the clients of the Secure Operations Centre (SOC), operated by QinetiQ's Trusted Information Man-agement (TIM) division, are Government agencies, important financial institutions and other large enterprises here in Britain and around the world.

From a high-tech control room on the Malvern site, technicians can monitor their clients' information systems. They are able to detect the first signs of a hacker attack or virus intrusion - and deal with it.

The control room is operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

TIM arose from the Secure e-Business team of what used to be DERA.

The former Government research establishment has been involved with the Internet since the earliest days of the computer network in the 1970s, and has a wealth of experience in the field to draw on.

Now, TIM has around 200 employees in Malvern, a further 50 in the United States and more in Brussels and in Germany.

Richard Cambridge, the group's director of managed services, said: "We're growing every day."

He said the SOC was the first monitoring site in the UK to detect the Nimda virus, which hit the Internet earlier this year.

"We were able to inform our clients about it and help them deal with it," said Mr Cambridge.

Among the services offered by TIM are a digital investigative service which has experience of a wide variety of cases, including fraud, Internet and mobile phone abuse.

It also operates a data recovery service, education is a speciality and it offers training in information security.