Salford security tech allows better public sector comms

Salford City Council has installed technology from RSA that will meet compliance demands for a government-wide network.

The move will also enable it to better communicate with other local authorities.

RSA's enVision platform should now allow Salford to meet compliance requirements of the Government Connect Secure Extranet (GCSX) Code of Connection (CoCo).

GCSX is a secure and private wide area network (WAN) run by the central government, enabling interactions with local authorities and organisations. To access the services, councils were told that they needed to comply with security controls.

For instance, enVision records instances of employees using the GCSX to access government data, as well as further detail about the data being accessed and the way it was used.

In an interview with IT PRO, RSA's UK director Adam Bangle said that Salford City Council saw the opportunity to implement the technology early on.

"There are a wide number of councils that are part way through deployment, while some are still making purchasing decisions," he said.

"It provides clear auditability of what has happened to people's networks. But it can also alert you to security breaches or anything that is outside of security policy," he added.

With access to GCSX, RSA claimed Salford City Council now had the ability to become more productive and responsive by sharing information.

"The time it takes to troubleshoot has changed from quite a few hours to just a few minutes," he added, detailing the benefits already experienced when it came to log management.

On a wider level, Bangle said: "This is part of the cost saving initiatives across government at large and a way in which the government can be much more connected with a much more useful range of services to its citizens."