Eden and South Lakeland have made huge progress towards digital transformation of services but with such a large geographical area to service, and a wide range of field-based workers, enabling these workers to complete key tasks anywhere at any time via a mobile device was critical to drive productivity and customer outcomes.
Concerns around security had been a major barrier to adoption. It was vitally important for the councils to know their mobile phones and tablets, and the potentially sensitive data they store, were protected from potential breaches.
In addition, the solution needed to comply with device, data management and protection guidelines set out by the Communications-Electronics Security Group (CESG), the UK government authority which provides policy and assistance on the security of communications and electronic data – now the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).
CWSI worked closely with the councils to develop an integrated solution to address their need for a more agile workforce that could operate safely and efficiently on mobile devices in their daily working lives, while meeting all the necessary NCSC security and compliance requirements.
Our integrated solution brought together three vendors – MobileIron, Wandera and Check Point Sandblast to configure, manage and protect all aspects of the councils’ mobility program. MobileIron provided traditional EMM features with comprehensive security, mobile application management (MAM), and mobile content management (MCM) capabilities and provided Virtual Private Network (VPN) access to internally hosted applications such as SharePoint.
Wandera provided a cloud-based mobile data gateway to control and analyse mobile traffic, with the added benefit of expense control, preventing users from accessing inappropriate sites and checking that no sensitive data is being leaked by applications.
Check Point Sandblast was employed for its capabilities in malicious application detection, identifying both known and unknown threats, preventing compromised devices from accessing the councils’ network, and encrypting all data in transit.
CWSI’s bespoke solution allows IT administrators at the councils to secure and manage mobile devices across multiple operating systems. In total the solution provided 27 security and productivity features that were required by the councils.
Employees can now connect to a range of trusted networks to access official information and gain instant to access critical company applications such as e-mail, SharePoint and Skype from anywhere on any authorised device. They can also access various internet-based services for both official use and limited personal use.
IT administrators at the councils can easily manage and secure mobile devices across multiple operating systems with automatic device provisioning and manage data settings through granular control at a device-level, saving on data usage costs while maintaining access to critical applications.
Phones and tablets are protected at device, application and network levels. Employees are restricted from accessing inappropriate content. Devices can easily be de-provisioned when they no longer require access to official information – all sensitive information is automatically removed. Data can be selectively wiped from lost or stolen corporate and staff-owned devices and measures are in place to protect against sensitive data leaks.
Benefits
- Compliance with NCSC security recommendations
- Huge productivity gains for employees in the field
- Visibility, control & management for IT administrators
- Protection from mobile security threats at device, network and application level
- Protection from bill shock and high data bills
