Manage contractor security risks

The challenging economic environment of the past 18 months has seen NZ organisations become more cautious when hiring staff, preferring to hire contractors with external skills for a specific piece of work or function rather than increasing staffing levels.

This resulted in an increase in outsourcing either the role or function on a permanent or on-demand basis.  

As the definition of an employee ebbs and flows with the demands of the business, the definition of an organisation security boundary must flex accordingly.  In many of these models the real business problem is that the temporary staff are required to connect to critical corporate systems and often use their own IT resources such as laptops - which the IS department have no control, management or governance of.  

This can introduce damaging malware and unauthorised access into the corporate network which in the worst case scenario can lead to complete network shutdown.  This was the case in January 2010 when the Ministry of Health had an attack which resulted in 2,000 PCs being affected for 15 days.  This kind of attack ends up costing more by paralysing rather than enabling the organisation.

MPA have worked with NZ organisations to assist them develop and implement security postures to achieve the balance between meeting the demands for flexibility whilst protecting critical systems.

Combinations of McAfee Network Intrusion Prevention, server based application lockdown and vulnerability management has established an automated security framework that protects critical systems whilst allowing the benefits of on demand connectivity. Deploying the McAfee ePO security policy and event management system provides the visibility required for a small IS team to manage the security platforms from a single console.

Various critical infrastructure providers in NZ have embraced the MPA McAfee framework.  Request  a copy of the MPA 5 point IPS plan - assess, analyse, design, implement, review!