UK businesses need to have fine control over their data
to ensure they tap into the benefits of the goverment'sDigital Britainstrategy, a research
report warns.
The report outlines the opportunities and threats which will
face CIOs, IT directors, IT managers and SMEs once Digital Britain
becomes a reality.
Digital Britain will extend networks further than ever before,
increasing opportunities and security risks to businesses,
according to the report by research company
Quocirca and security firm
SonicWALL.
Greater interconnectivity between organisations, their customer,
suppliers and their employees means that businesses can no longer
rely on traditional approaches to security, the report said.
"Businesses do not own and control the network in distributed
enterprises, which means they need to put controls around all
critical data," said Rob Bamforth, analyst at Quocirca.
Every element of this new kind of distributed network needs to
be looked at as a discrete, controllable unit if businesses are to
protect crucial data assets.
Access to IT systems by business partners should be segregated
where possible, monitored, and controlled only through authorised,
secured communication links.
Businesses will have to adopt a layered and data-centric
approach to security controls, said Bamforth.
These layers should be aimed at checking the source of network
traffic and the security, anti-virus and intrusion prevention
status of the devices being used, said Andy Zollo, regional
director for northern Europe at SonicWALL.
"Businesses will have to conduct more checks on incoming traffic
before allowing access to business networks," Andy Zollo said.
According to the report, controlling a connection with a firewall
is no longer adequate.
An amnesty is the best approach to enable the business to look
at what devices employees are using so that the appropriate
policies and security technologies can be put in place, he
said.