Adaptive Secure Infrastructure

With the advent of convergence, today’s global playing field has changed rapidly. The increase in the use of laptops, outside consultants and wireless technology have created new entry points into the network and hence, increased risk. To adapt to this new challenge, organisations must redefine their security approaches.

Dimension Data’s Adaptive Secure Infrastructure (ASI) framework enables clients to build an adaptive, dynamic, manageable and impenetrable security infrastructure that grants appropriate and controlled levels of access to various users. We advise and assist organisations in dealing with the modern day challenges of connecting the corporate network with mobile users, business partners and external parties.

ASI represents a migration plan that allows existing infrastructures and new secure infrastructures to collaborate more effectively. This results in IT better fulfilling its core function of supporting business processes, an improved implementation of the corporate information security policy, better risk management and improved productivity.

The ASI framework is designed around a four-phased approach:

• Identification – Dimension Data analyses the existing environment to establish the number of users, systems or even applications connected to it. Such elements as computer, user role, health status, access method and location are part of the identification process and together they form the ‘entity’. This phase is critical to achieve control based on context and relationships, which is the end goal.
• Classification – Dimension Data defines risk profiles for each entity. The classification process takes a series of factors into account, such as the protection mechanisms deployed at the entity and the value of the data that will be accessed. Based on the identity of the entity and a risk profile, an appropriate corporate information security policy is developed.
• Isolation – Entities are separated into different groups, based on their risk profiles. Entities with similar profiles are not authorised to communicate with entities with a different profile. The same segregation is further utilised to separate entities with similar profiles to reduce the propagation of any threat and the implementation of end-to-end security.
• Control – The system is secured by implementing appropriate and specific security measures within the overall IT architecture.  Targeted control is applied to all flows of data which are scanned and filtered by the appropriate security tools.

See how Dimension Data secured Dexia Group, one of the top-15 banking groups in the Euro zone. Read more.