BT on Wednesday launched innovations to its BT Assure security portfolio which are designed to help organisations better address a wide array of security issues and protect the trust required for business to be successful.

These innovations focus on the risks posed by the growing presence of personal devices on corporate networks, the large scale deployment of cloud solutions and the challenges of ‘big data’, the large amounts of unstructured data inherent in contemporary commerce.

An exclusive survey of more than 2,000 users and decision makers across 11 countries shows that risks to business are moving too fast for a purely reactive security approach to be successful. The BT “Rethink the Risk” research results also demonstrate that the traditional secure outer perimeter of enterprise networks no longer exists and confirms that specific tools are required to measure, understand and address this new security reality.

According to the research, cyber security threats, accidental or intentional employee data loss and increasing use of personal devices on employers networks are the three biggest security risks perceived by IT decision makers. In particular, BYOD is making progress within the corporate environment, with 60 per cent of employees using personal devices for work, with especially high usage in countries such as China and India (92 per cent and 80 per cent).

The BT research also shows that 82 per cent of companies say they already allow BYOD or will do within the next 24 months. The adoption of BYOD brings to light new security issues. Four out of ten companies have experienced security breaches due to people bringing in unauthorised devices. Of those companies that do have a BYOD policy, security was by far the biggest challenge (74 per cent). Interestingly, the board and senior management are the second largest group of people demanding BYOD, just behind IT people and power users.

Assure Secure Web offers offer customers a uniform web access policy for all remote devices, whether employee or company owned, with one single, centralised and instantly updatable view, global reporting, and role based control, so there is no need to reach each device individually. 

Assure Analytics brings to life in real time the potential threats and outcomes faced by businesses, helping them make the right decisions for effective policies.

Assure Cyber offers a higher touch, more controls oriented approach to security incident and event management (SIEM), allowing for analysis and reports that are fully interactive and customizable, streamlining incident response and simplifying lessons to be learned. 

Mobility Lifecycle Management covers employee or company owned devices, with granular access rules, role based usage, remote wipe, and cloud updates. It establishes a framework touching large populations of mobile devices.

Assure Evaluator allows customers and prospects to see how their state of security readiness compares to typical enterprises, and helps steer them towards the areas of most pressing concern.

Jeff Kelly, CEO of BT Global Services, said, “By promoting intelligence and innovation through our BT Assure portfolio, we help our customers to identify, implement and deliver security where it matters most, building it into the heart of the organisation rather than just bolting it on. Trust needs to be backed by a continuous investment program in skilled people, as well as state of the art global infrastructure and security management systems. This is definitely the time to rethink the risk.”