The £400 million Lancashire County Council and BT networks and telecoms joint venture has consolidated its security systems into one contract with McAfee.
One Connect began operations in May 2011 and serves the communications and business services needs of the county council, other authorities, schools and a variety of other organisations in the region through a shared service model.
Originally, the body inherited nine discrete security solutions, including anti-virus, web filtering, data loss prevention, email encryption and hard disk encryption. However, they were deemed too complex, too costly and inflexible for supporting the organisation moving forward.
In particular, One Connect needed to be more flexible and agile in the way that staff worked, as well as how the organisation collaborated and securely shared information with its partners, including emergency services and district councils.
Mark Orford, director of ICT at One Connect, said: "The discrete security solutions meant that the security culture was one of 'lockdown' rather than being 'security enabled' and customer focused."
The One Connect IT team decided to consolidate the patch-work of nine solutions into one centrally managed and fully integrated security platform. In doing so, it expected to reduce security complexity and cost, and increase flexibility.
"With an integrated security framework risks are reduced significantly because you are protecting the device, information, network and infrastructure in a unified fashion," said Orford.
One Connect selected McAfee for its integrated suite of solutions and services for every security layer. Additional security capabilities not previously available to the organisation, but deployed as part of the McAfee offering, include advanced network protection, data loss prevention, vulnerability and risk management, mobile web security and mobile device management.
"By securing the network and endpoints, as well as the information itself, we are well positioned for a more flexible working culture. We expect to have this capability fully activated before the end of this year," said Orford.