Protecting Sensitive Information on a Wide Area Network

Background

Portsmouth is a city of about 188,500 people located in the county of Hampshire on the southern coast of Great Britain. It is the most densely populated city outside of inner London with 46.9 people per hectare. Portsmouth City Council (PCC) aims to help the residents of Portsmouth with all aspects of their day-to-day lives. The Council ensures the city is healthy, clean, safe and supportive for every one of its citizens.

“Set up, trialled and expanded across other departments. With Gradian’s help it’s definitely gone to plan.”
Derrick Hawkes, Portsmouth City Council

The Challenge

PCC had previously undertaken a project to comply with security requirements to connect to the Government Connect Secure Extranet (GCSX). This is a private Wide Area Network (WAN) which enables secure interactions between connected local authorities and other Government Secure Intranet (GSi) connected organisations, including the Department of Work and Pensions and the Police National Network.

Whilst working to ensure data exchanged between the Council and other government bodies was secure, PCC wanted to extend the same high level of security across their other interactions – with individuals and organisations outside of the GCSX.

Derrick Hawkes, Information Service Project Manager at PCC, explains: “Data security is taken extremely seriously at PCC. We need to exchange vital information with individuals and organisations such as landlords, occupational health practitioners and countless others every single day. Just because these people are out side of the GCSX does not mean the information we’re exchanging is any less important”. Derrick continues: “We need to exchange sensitive information quickly and securely to ensure the City Council provides an efficient and high quality service for our thousands of citizens”.

The Solution

PCC consulted independent experts Gradian Systems for advice on how best to protect the sensitive information that needed to be exchanged with non-GSCX bodies. Gradian recommended Proofpoint’s email encryption solution, which automatically encrypts and decrypts sensitive content, without endusers having to take special actions to ensure that confidential or private information is encrypted before being transmitted over the internet.

The solution was originally trialled with the council’s occupational health service where medical information is exchanged between the council’s occupational health staff and external staff at surgeries in the area. Short set-up times and ease of use meant the Proofpoint solution was quickly hailed a success, and PCC were keen to start using the technology across other areas of the Council as soon as possible. Derrick Hawkes reflects “All we have to do is register the external users on the system, send them instructions on how to connect, and then off we go. Gradian have recommended the ideal solution. It does exactly what it says on the tin – it protects
us.”

Previously, PCC transferred sensitive information via recorded mail. Not only was this more costly than email, but it was also time consuming. To ensure security, recipients would have to wait at least a day to receive the information they needed, and resulting actions would also be delayed. The Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway has allowed PCC to reduce the cost and environmental impact associated with physical mail, and has dramatically increased efficiency.

“Gradian have recommended the ideal solution. It does exactly what it says on the tin – it protects us.”
Derrick Hawkes, Portsmouth City Council

The Result

PCC now use Proofpoint’s email encryption technology across several Council departments including occupational health, social landlords and the election service. However, the technology has been so simple to use that a full roll-out across the Council is on the cards. Derrick observes “There’s so much sensitive information everywhere – from names and addresses through to payment information. It would only take one email getting into the wrong hands to potentially harm our citizens, the service the Council offer and PCC’s reputation, and we cannot allow that to happen.”

It’s often hard to quantify the success of a security project, but Derrick sums it up perfectly: “Success is the fact that we suffered no data leakage. The solution works perfectly, Gradian have helped us work faster and with peace of mind.”