Becrypt Trusted Client provides secure remote access to Foreign and Commonwealth Office

(01/05/2009)

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) employs 16,000 staff worldwide, with 261 embassies and deals with 2.9 million consular enquiries a year. The FCO has deployed Becrypt’s Trusted Client to enable secure access to its office network to over ninety employees at two of its overseas Posts in New York.

Trusted Client allows remote workers to access their network from an unmanaged PC or laptop over the Internet by simply inserting the Trusted Client USB device and booting up the machine. Following the success of the FCO Trusted Client solution, the FCO has also deployed the solution at its offices in Brussels.

According to Jayd Davies, Senior Enterprise Architect at FCO; “Following a review of our IT provision, we identified that for many of our overseas colleagues a key deliverable was being able to create documents and access email securely when working away from their offices”.

“Having looked at the necessary protection levels required, we decided to test Trusted Client at our two Posts in New York and worked with the Becrypt team to develop our solution. We have since had very positive feedback - many staff have said that it has transformed the way they work. Now they have the freedom to work remotely and from home, yet still in a very secure way.”

The IT team originally evaluated Becrypt’s Trusted Client and conducted user workshops to identify the key priorities and tasks in the locations that the employees wished to do on a daily basis. The FCO in-house technical expert worked closely with Becrypt to develop the solution, based on Becrypt’s product.

The FCO version of Trusted Client - was ready for use following an eight week period, during which the solution was designed, built and tested.

Trusted Client allows people to work securely from an unmanaged PC over an Internet connection. It addresses the inherent risks of allowing unmanaged connections to an organisation’s secure networks and data. By providing cost effective and highly secure access for mobile workers Trusted Client is an easy to use solution that transforms an unmanaged machine into a secure access point.

Simply by inserting the Trusted Client device into a USB port and re-booting, a secure environment is launched, providing a user interface, web browser, email access and standalone applications completely isolated from the host PC’s hard drive. Trusted Client is fully configurable to each organisation’s individual requirements.

Bernard Parsons, CEO at Becrypt said, “The FCO requirement to provide employees with the opportunity to work remotely and securely is a need that many organisations have, both in the public and private sector. Increased mobility and remote working can both improve productivity and provide employees with work/life balance, but can compromise data security if not implemented appropriately. Becrypt has designed Trusted Client to provide an effective, low cost yet robust, and highly secure solution that can be quickly implemented and deliver positive results very quickly.”

Related topics:  Authentication and identity management   Internet and Web security   Mobile and Wireless Security   Network Security 

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