Fujitsu Services, Calkis collaborate to drive information security awareness

Fujitsu Services SA and Calkis Business Solutions have announced a partnership to enhance the awareness and understanding of information security and underlying processes among corporate employees in South Africa.

"Everyone is generically aware of the need for security when it comes to both corporate and personal information, but few realise how their actions, or lack thereof, impact on their risk exposure," says Ugan Naidoo, Management Consultant at Fujitsu Services SA.

"Investing in the latest information security technology is not a solution to this problem because people can and will always be the weakest link in any system that has worldwide access - which is almost every corporate network today."

The problem companies face in securing information is that while it is easy to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of data, it is difficult to accomplish this while also ensuring its broad availability to the appropriate people.

Security procedures must therefore be enforced in a controlled, yet flexible manner.

"The only way to accomplish this effectively is to ensure that corporate security is a combination of the traditional 'people, processes and technology' triangle," explains Carel van Vuuren, CEO of Calkis Business Solutions. "The functioning of each component of the triangle is critical if an holistic solution is to be developed that effectively secures corporate data from unauthorised access."

The new partnership will therefore focus on ensuring corporations implement robust processes and empower their workers, at all levels, to take responsibility for the security of all information, as it applies to their jobs.

To ensure the effectiveness of their awareness campaign, the companies will not offer a traditional training programme that sees people falling asleep in a classroom while a lecturer reads from a manual.

"People are only aware of the impact they can have on information security when they personally identify with the principles and processes as it applies in their world," adds Van Vuuren. "Our programme makes this very clear through everyday examples and the acting out of scenarios people can identify with."

The awareness drive is not a generic event that is presented to every Fujitsu Services client. The security maturity level of the organisation's employees is initially assessed and then targeted interventions are designed to resolve the situation.

Naidoo adds that the partnership between Calkis and Fujitsu Services is a perfect fit because both companies focus on the outcome, irrespective of what technology the client has implemented.

"The partnership will focus on the effective understanding and implementation of security processes by employees, irrespective of what underlying technology is employed to support it," concludes Naidoo.