SYDNEY – 12 AUGUST 2026 – Quest Software, a global leader in data management, cybersecurity, and platform modernisation, has achieved the highest government security certification in Australia, achieving the status for both its Quest Trusted Data Management Platform, and the Quest Security Management Platform. Both platforms, designed to deliver trusted data and secure identities for organisations in the AI era, achieved the Infosec Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) assessment for PROTECTED workloads.
This certification provides government, public sector, and highly regulated industry customers with the assurance that Quest’s offerings meet the Australian Government’s cybersecurity framework.
IRAP is Australia’s independent third-party assessment process, evaluating how a technology platform stacks up against the Australian Government’s Information Security Manual (ISM), the cybersecurity framework maintained by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD). IRAP assessed status means that Quest’s two platforms have been independently evaluated against the Australian Government’s Information Security Manual (ISM). Without it, agencies typically have to run their own assessment of a vendor’s platform before procurement can move forward, a process that can take the better part of a year and represent a significant, often six-figure, cost.
By completing the IRAP assessment, Quest removes that burden from the customer side of the table. The assessment covers the Official and PROTECTED classification levels, the standard required by the large majority of Commonwealth agencies.
“Many of Australia’s largest government agencies already run Quest Software technology in their on-premises environments for Active Directory security monitoring, change auditing, recovery, and governance,” said Richard Kulkarni, Head of APAC at Quest Software. “This IRAP assessed status doesn’t introduce Quest to government, rather it extends a relationship that already exists into hybrid and cloud-first territory, with independent assurance attached.
“That is important because the modernisation that agencies are embarking on rarely looks like a single clean lift-and-shift,” Kulkarni continued. “It looks like Active Directory and Entra ID modernisation running alongside Machinery of Government changes, cybersecurity uplift programs, and legacy platform retirement – often at the same time – with strict governance requirements and close to zero tolerance for downtime.”
Identity remains one of the most targeted surfaces in government networks, and the Quest Security Management Platform supports the monitoring, auditing, recovery, and privileged access oversight that underpin Essential Eight alignment and a genuine Zero Trust posture, for human and non-human identities alike.
For agencies managing Machinery of Government changes, the platform’s identity threat detection and response capabilities help contain compromised accounts before they spread across a hybrid directory estate, while automated recovery reduces the time it takes to restore trusted operations after an incident. That combination of prevention, detection, and rapid recovery is increasingly what federal security assessors expect to see documented, not just described, and IRAP assessed status confirms it has been independently verified against the ISM’s identity and access management controls. Privileged access oversight extends to non-human identities too, an important distinction as agencies deploy more automation and AI agents across their environments.
The Quest Trusted Data Management Platform helps agencies discover, govern, model, and catalogue their data, and turn it into reusable, AI-ready data products without starting from a blank sheet each time. As agencies stand up new AI and analytics use cases on top of modernised infrastructure, governed data is the foundation that determines whether those use cases are trustworthy, not something to be considered only after the migration is done.
The platform’s Automated Data Product Factory lets agencies convert raw, siloed datasets into governed, reusable data products in days rather than months, with lineage, ownership, and trust scoring built in from the start. For agencies balancing new AI initiatives against strict data sovereignty and classification requirements, that built-in governance means analytics teams can move quickly without losing sight of who can access what, or why. It also gives data stewards a single, auditable record of how a data product was built and who has approved it for use.
The IRAP assessment covers both of Quest’s platforms, offering agencies and partners the complete product, making each platform easier to evaluate, easier to procure, and easier for partners to sell into high-assurance bids.
About Quest Software
Quest Software creates technology and solutions that build the foundation for enterprise AI. Focused on data management and governance, cybersecurity, and platform modernization, Quest helps organizations address their most pressing challenges through trusted, AI-ready data, secure identities, and modernized platforms. Around the globe, more than 45,000 companies, including more than 90% of the Fortune 500, count on Quest Software. For more information, visit www.quest.com or follow Quest Software on LinkedIn, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter).
Global media contact:
Matt Hurst
Head of Global Corporate Communications, Quest Software
