"A firewall is not a policy - it's merely one approach to security"
-- Pete Cafarchio, firewalls consortium manager for the U.S.A.'s National Computer Security Association.
We believe that a properly designed security policy is essential in order to make an organisation's systems secure. We will design a security policy for your organisation by analysing your needs and the potential threats you face, as well as the level of risk you are willing to accept. The policy design will result in a security policy document that will be used to guide the implementation of security. We will then give you advice on how to implement this security policy in your organisation. The process of implementation may involve setting up firewalls and proxies as specified in the policy. Once the implementation is complete, we will test it and also assist you in arranging an independent audit with some other company, in order to verify both the policy and the implementation.
This means that if the policy is implemented properly, it will ensure the security and protection of your system.
Contrary to popular belief, installing a firewall is not in itself a secure solution. It is very important to ensure that the architecture of the entire system (including firewalls) enhances security. This will involve developing a network topology and data flow architecture for a secure network and then implementing this design on your system.
Integration of different security measures complementing each other will enhance your overall system security.
Most successful firewall solutions are built using a combination of tools, originating from both the commercial and open source worlds. We can design a custom firewall solution for your organisation based on your particular needs. The threats each organisation faces can vary enormously and with a custom firewall solution, we can ensure that you get exactly what you need. Shrink-wrapped firewall solutions can offer a high degree of security only if implemented and configured carefully and consistently. Most security products come with a surprisingly lax configuration straight out of the box. We will recommend appropriate firewall product combinations for your organisation, and implement their configuration in accordance to the security policy.
The threats each organisation faces can vary enormously and with a custom firewall solution, we can ensure that you get exactly what you need.
Security depends very much on policies and administration of your systems. Many threats can be countered more successfully with a consistent well-designed policy than with the use of technology such as firewalls.
A higher degree of awareness and participation by your staff in system security matters will greatly increase your organisation's security.
A significant proportion of today's popular software (including operating systems, e-mail applications and web browsers) is unfortunately not designed with security in mind. As a result, many security threats come from your own users' use of e-mail and the World Wide Web. We can design and install e-mail and web proxy applications that will filter the content your users receive and remove dangerous content. A well configured proxy will work completely transparently, unnoticed by your users.
A higher level of security is achieved by filtering potentially malicious content.
The only secure computer is one that is turned off, locked in a safe, and buried twenty feet down in a secret location -- and i'm not completely confident of that one, either.
-- Bruce Schneier, cryptography and security expert
Ultimately, no security system is 100% secure. Sufficiently determined attackers with enough resources at their disposal can potentially penetrate even the strongest security measures, given enough time.
Conscientious monitoring of your security systems provides the last line of defense against the determined attacker. We can design and implement alert facilities that will notify you of potential security breaches, allowing you to respond to an attack in progress before it has a chance to compromise your systems. Alert facilities can send a security alert to email, console, pagers, mobile phones (SMS), voice mail and even bells and flashing lights.
You will also know when your security has been breached.
When a security breach is detected, you need to act swiftly and decisively in order to protect your system. You also have a legal liability in the event that your systems are used by intruders to attempt to break into other systems. We can design an incident response policy that will guide your actions in the event of a security alert.
Security breaches are dealt with swiftly and in the most appropriate manner.
As technology changes and new vulnerabilities are discovered, you security policy needs to keep up-to-date. The security policy is a live document that needs to be re-evaluated frequently. Without re-evaluation of the policy and appropriate adjustments to the implementation you may be left vulnerable to security threats.
We can undertake to re-evaluate your security policy at pre-agreed intervals to ensure your continued security.
It is always hard to imagine one of your own people attacking your organisation or causing a breach of security, but the fact is that such attacks are extremely common. We believe that internal security is often overlooked because it is more complicated. Internal security is not available "off-the-shelf". We can provide you with advice on how to design and implement internal security policies to suit your organisation's needs.
This will make sure that your system is secure from the inside as well as the outside.
Connecting your systems between offices that are geographically separate will allow information to flow seamlessly between different sites. You may also want to connect your systems to suppliers or partner companies to create a dynamic supply-chain that minimises delays by making information available to all the parties related to your business. When you connect you organisation in such a way, you create a Wide Area Network (WAN). The communications links of your WAN need to be protected from interception, modification and other external threats. Your own network also needs to be protected from unauthorised access coming from your suppliers' or partners' networks. We offer a wide variety of solutions for *secure* Wide Area Network communications. We can implement encryption and authentication systems or roll-out a fully featured Virtual Private Network (VPN).
We can help you can extend your information systems to include several offices, suppliers and partners while maintaining robust security.
If you would like to find out how secure your organisation is, we can perform an audit of your system. We can do this by examining your systems and policies and evaluating whether they are implemented correctly. We can also run "penetration tests" where we will attempt to compromise the security of your organisation from the outside. We can also offer independent audits of security installations conducted by other security companies. We always recommend that an independent security is conducted after we complete our work and we believe such an audit is essential to verify the security of any site.
Don't just take our word for it. We actively encourage third party testing of our security policies to ensure that the system works.
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