With cyber attacks front of mind for local councils, improving your security posture is key

With cyber attacks front of mind for local councils and digital services increasing, managing your security infrastructure effectively and keeping safe from cyber-attacks has never been more vital. We help local councils stay safe with our end-to-end network security. With today’s digital transformation and remote working accelerating and more services online, cyber-attacks have increased ten-fold and IT teams are not only tasked with keeping the network secure but also with protecting end-user devices and ensuring the physical and online safety of the workforce. All these serious responsibilities, paired with limited resources, create a challenge for local council IT teams.

So how do you protect endpoints, networks, and staff?

At Redway Networks, we partner with Cisco Meraki to provide our local government customers with next-generation security managed through a single, web-based dashboard. This means you can simplify device, network, and security camera management through remote configurations, video monitoring, and application deployments. Your network will be safe from vulnerabilities, data will be protected, and your building will be monitored.

Network Security

Local councils were hit by 2.3 million cyber attacks in 2022 and are becoming regular targets for cyber-attacks with many lacking a cyber-security policy or the right training. Cyber criminals often gain access to private or sensitive data and threaten to share this information. The first line of defence comes by creating user-based policies that restrict who can access various parts of the network. With integrated intrusion protection and malware scanning, users can easily stop malicious threats and files before they enter the network while prioritising trusted applications with Layer 7 firewall and traffic shaping rules. With increased network visibility, you can track and shut down rogue access points, set up email alerts when rogues are detected, and contain rogue SSIDs, access point spoofs and packet floods. Most importantly, with Cisco Meraki’s cloud-managed MX security solution, you can ensure the latest firmware updates are pushed to the network automatically to guard against the latest security threats and vulnerabilities. Read our case study on client Horsham District Council to see how they moved to a next-gen network security solution that blocked over 150 attacks in its first 2 weeks alone.

Endpoint Security

As digital resources continue to grow and staff use more devices, endpoint security has become increasingly important. With an endpoint management solution, you can protect staff from accessing blacklisted sites, and downloading unknown applications by using content filtering and advanced malware protection. If a device is lost or stolen, especially one holding sensitive information, you can easily identify its location and retrieve it or wipe its contents remotely. Most importantly, by protecting all your council’s devices, the network can remain secure from common endpoint security vulnerabilities.

Physical Security

Like most business, council’s need to provide a safe workplace for all its staff and visitors without fear of trespassers or unforeseen incidents. With smarter security cameras, you can quickly identify when a person is where they shouldn’t be and view video analytics of activity to identify high-risk areas. You can also help deter incidents with the ability to quickly search recorded video and easily share with the police. With granular access controls and visibility from any Internet browser, management can view groupings of cameras, or a single camera, and act accordingly. Plus, with video data encrypted at rest and during transport, you get even more protection against cyber threats.

Future Proof your network and meet future demands

In addition to our powerful security solutions, we can help your local council replace all of its outdated legacy equipment with the last technology so you can empower your staff and improve customer service, through safe access to digital information. We supply Meraki’s cloud-based software as its powerful, yet easy to manage through one pane of glass. Our next-generation wireless solutions separate staff and public traffic so they all benefit from robust wireless connectivity. Our scalable network switches deliver visibility and control over your entire edge network and our IoT sensors monitor your IT infrastructure so you can make more intelligent decisions to reduce equipment replacement.

To find out how we can help your local council with all its infrastructure needs, contact us today.

Cisco Meraki’s cloud-based solutions can help transform digitalisation within local councils. When the pandemic hit and moved much of work and life online, it accelerated digital transformation and now as local councils shift to the ‘next normal’ they need to prepare for a more permanent digital world. In a recent Government survey, nearly half of respondents said bill payments, records management and public meetings will remain online post-pandemic, while around one-third said the same about licensing processes. Additionally, 60 percent of respondents believed a remote/hybrid workforce will be the way of the future.

A strong network foundation and cloud-based IT will be a big part of ensuring staff and citizens can successfully navigate a more digital government. So read on to learn how your local council can make the transition to an easy-to-manage cloud based network, and why you can’t afford to wait any longer to make the switch.

We partner with Cisco Meraki to provide its wide range of networking products including access points, edge and core switching, firewalls, CCTV and IoT. In our experience the valuable features for Meraki in local government include:

local government networking

Improved IT Management

Many local governments have limited IT resources to support a large number of facilities, users and devices. Meraki’s cloud-based network can provide significant time and resource savings and allow IT teams to focus on more strategic work, especially when the entire network can be managed remotely from a single pane of glass.

Increased Network Security

Cybersecurity has always been an imperative for government, but the need for effective protection has intensified in the current remote work environment. And with further digitalisation of government services underway, the challenge and need are only growing greater. Consequently, cybersecurity solutions are one of the top three tools that local governments are most likely to adopt in the ‘next normal’ after the pandemic. A cloud-based network platform can greatly improve network security and should be a key consideration for any government organisation. For instance, Meraki’s cloud-based next-generation firewall capabilities give administrators complete control over user content and applications on their network.

Augmenting Facility Security

The physical security of government facilities and assets is another important part of the overall security picture for local councils. One way to bolster facility and asset security is through Meraki’s cloud based network, which supports smart cameras that provide reliable monitoring. Physical security has to complement IT security to make the entire operations and workforce more secure and a cloud-based model can combine IoT and IT security together.

Digitalisation Can’t Wait:

For local councils a cloud-based network that simplifies troubleshooting and monitoring and provides visibility across the entire network is essential, especially if the council has a small team and many facilities and services to support. Meraki is powerful yet simple to use so network admins can easily configure and support the switches without having in-depth knowledge. The flexibility of user authentication, ease of installation and the simplicity of firmware upgrades also make overall network management easy whilst providing secure access to the network.

If you would like to know more about Cisco Meraki for your council building, contact us today.

Underpinned by great design, Cambium Networks can give your local government office buildings or libraries all the connectivity you need to deliver a great service to your community with reliable technology that provides the highest through-put at the lowest total cost. Local governments are deploying wireless connectivity to create city hotspots, monitor facilities, and connect events. Wireless broadband technology from Cambium Networks is designed to provide the spectral efficiency, coverage, and capacity to offer consistently reliable wireless connectivity for remote buildings, indoor and outdoor WiFi access, events, and monitoring of facilities.

We partner with Cambium Networks to provide its CnPilot cloud-managed WiFi access points and Cambium’s free cnMaestro cloud-based management or on-premises software platform to give you a complete birds-eye view of your council’s performance – all underpinned by our best-of-breed design. In our experience the valuable features for Cambium WiFi for local government include: