After opening four security centers and adding 300 security practitioners in 2002, Unisys has coined the term Zero-Gap to target customers with an intelligent security plan that brings security gaps as close to zero as is humanly and economically possible.
The company intends to expand its professional services by emphasizing that an ultimate aim for organizations is to have a security plan that takes into account all conceivable points of risk and takes steps to either eliminate or mitigate those risks. The objective is to deploy tightly integrating approaches to physical, operational, financial and cyber security.
It has taken the best part of a year to formulate a plan, Ray Stanton, director of security at Unisys EMEA, told ComputerWire. The company had to explore how to make best use of its security know-how, which is fragmented across different Unisys business units. Often these are operating within different sectors, calling for specific vertical process and technology expertise. Zero Gap aims to draw on that spread of expertise, said Stanton.
The company has not gone so far as to set up a new business unit to house its initiative, but plans instead to call on the combined expertise of a claimed 1,500 security consultants and available associates for Zero-Gap Security Planning assignments. These will draw on existing Unisys consulting and systems integration expertise.
The company said the new Zero-Gap program has been influenced by a variety of security engagements carried out in the past few years. These include project work for Credit Suisse Group, the US Department of Defense, a smart card program for the Government of Malaysia, and a high-profile contract with the US Transportation Security Administration. Under that agreement, Unisys and its partners are building the technology and security infrastructure that is needed to protect passengers using some 429 US commercial airports.
The Zero-Gap Security Planning scheme will address business continuity, identity, privacy matters and security infrastructure, and will provide consulting, architecture design, implementation and management services. This is likely to involve various Unisys partner products and solutions from the likes of Microsoft, Cisco, Nokia, Baltimore Technologies, Checkpoint, Entegrity, Identrus and RSA Security.
Unisys maintains that too many businesses carry too many misconceptions about what constitutes effective security practice, with many businesses employing stop-gap security strategies.
Source: Computerwire
