Assure Device Management

Optimise your security devices for the best possible protection

To protect your IT systems, you have to be constantly vigilant against security threats. Many organisations approach this by deploying security devices throughout their networks. However, to be effective, these devices need to be frequently updated and re-configured.

Yet many organisations don’t have the necessary IT resources to effectively manage this process in-house. Assure Device Management offers a cost-efficient, outsourced alternative.

Protect your network against attack

Assure Device Management enables you to enhance your network security by providing you with access to the most up-to-date expert advice on evolving threats and how to counteract them. Our security experts can:

• Configure all your network devices to deliver optimum performance, maximum surveillance and defence capabilities.
• Equip you with a full record of network activity, enabling you to detect potential threats quickly and react before your operations experience significant damage.
• Ensure all the latest vendor revisions, critical updates, and industry best practice recommendations are applied to your devices.
• Provide you with access to BT’s database of known security vulnerabilities to defend your business against the latest threats, whether or not they have been observed on your network.
• Minimise false alerts by accommodating local policy and operational requirements in the managed device’s configuration.

Free your IT staff from day-to-day maintenance and updates

Assure Device Management, delivers reliable IT security without the need to recruit your own staff and invest in ongoing training.

Key features of this service include:

• Device optimisation: we configure your devices with the latest attack signatures and updates to provide maximum defence against potential threats.
• Rapid response: BT continuously monitors your network to minimise risk by tuning and adjusting your devices in response to observed attacks.
• Expert support: our analysts have identified attacks on hundreds of major networks, so they know exactly what to look for to provide effective security recommendations.
• Flexible financing options: you can either purchase security devices or avoid capital expenditure by leasing devices as part of our management package.
• Service level agreements: guarantee devices will always deliver the best possible security with unlimited configuration changes and management improvements.

Simplify and secure device management

Assure Device Management, strengthens security by outsourcing all aspects of your intrusion detection system (IDS), intrusion prevention system (IPS) and firewall management.

The service helps free your security and IT resources from the complexities of setting up, maintaining and updating the devices in your network. We draw on our extensive experience to ensure that your network devices are always configured to provide maximum protection and surveillance.

We offer two types of Device Management:

• Basic: we manage your existing security devices, taking responsibility for vendor updates and configuration changes.
• Comprehensive: alongside the benefits of the basic option, we can supply your chosen devices and provide all necessary support or maintenance contracts.

BT provides a vendor neutral approach to network surveillance. Assure Device Management, a range of leading security appliance manufacturers, giving you the flexibility to select the vendor that’s right for your organisation.

You can also switch between vendors if you feel that another product would better suit your requirements. We provide full support during this transition to ensure business continuity and network security.

We currently provide device management for products from the following vendors:

• Check Point
• Cisco
• Juniper
• McAfee
• Sourcefire
• TippingPoint

However, we frequently review and update the vendors and devices we support due to new players in the market and customer requests. For more information contact your BT account manager.

Maintain network security with continuous surveillance

Assure Device Management, is implemented in a two-stage process.

Stage 1: Initial setup

During this integration period, we will assign an integration team to work alongside your IT and security staff. The integration team will:

• Introduce you to key BT personnel, practises and terminologies.
• Tune and base-line your network devices to minimise the risk of false-positives.
• Develop contact trees and escalation protocols to follow in the event of a security breach.
• Provide regular consultation and support via telephone.
• Offer you additional support online.

Stage 2: Ongoing management

Once the integration stage is complete, we continue monitoring and managing your network devices. This includes:

• Maintaining the underlying operating system.
• Making configuration recommendations and changes.
• Installing vendor security patches and updates.

When you renew your contract, you can exchange or update any devices managed by BT. You can even replace a device with one produced by another vendor if a particular model fulfils your security requirements more effectively.

Assure Device Management, can benefit your organisation if you:

• Don’t have the in-house resources or expertise to update and configure your security devices every time a new threat is identified.
• Want to strengthen your network security by deploying more devices without capital expenditure.
• Have already invested in a number of security devices, such as firewalls or intrusion detection systems (IDS), and want to maximise their effectiveness.
• Are an existing Managed Security Monitoring customer looking to further outsource network security to a proven specialist provider.

This service is available globally to customers who subscribe to Managed Security Monitoring.

Recognised security experience that delivers

• Global experience: we currently manage more than 300,000 devices for over 1000 customers. With 1,300 security experts, we’re one of the world’s biggest security and business continuity practices.
• Vendor neutral approach: you can choose the supplier of the devices you want to deploy and are not restricted to particular vendor.
• Security expertise: our expert analysts and engineers have extensive knowledge of leading operating systems and their vulnerabilities. We invest heavily in security-related research and development each year and we have 108 registered patents and more than 190 published security papers.
• Market Leadership: We’re the world’s number one managed security services IT outsourcing provider and we’re the highest rated of the world’s leading IT security services vendors in Datamonitor’s Black Book of Outsourcing report (January 2010).
• We’re one of just two providers with ‘comprehensive’ ranking for managed security services in Forrester’s Market Overview: Managed Security Services, Forrester Research, Inc (March 2010).