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All of us know that information is a key corporate asset that should be protected, yet no one these days seems too surprised when high-profile data breaches via lost laptops or USB sticks make the news. These stories have drawn attention to flimsy security policies as well as the unreliability of human behaviour. While many organisations have taken steps to limit data loss from devices such as laptops and smart-phones, a more hidden security risk still prevails: the printing environment.

The risks involved with printing documents do not always make headlines, but the fact that a printer offers a connection to an organisation’s entire network should give any business pause for thought.

Understanding the Print Security Gap

Employees use printers to print, fax, copy, scan and send valuable company information across the enterprise network every day - often without a second thought. Today's multifunction printers (MFPs) offer more data-handling features than ever, including hard drives for storing documents and scan-to-e-mail services, making them as sophisticated as desktop PCs. Enterprises routinely attach MFPs to networks, giving them all the flexibility, and security vulnerability, of any computer on a network. Ultimately today’s MFPs pose the same risk as any unprotected device.

At Xerox, we work with companies to protect their ideas and reduce the chance of theft through a document breach. One manufacturer contacted us after discovering that highly confidential research and development documents were stolen. The company told us that an investigation suggested that the leak occurred in the printing environment. While unfortunate, we helped the company take the necessary steps to secure its environment, and prevent this type of incident from happening again.

By working with many clients to successfully mitigate these types of risks, we have developed a system to help our clients quickly identify specific needs. Using a layered model, we walk clients through a series of questions to determine how best to secure their particular environment. The model’s first layer addresses the security aspects of the IT environment. For example, we carefully review what steps need to be taken to secure the IT environment in order to protect networks and devices from unauthorised network access. As mentioned above, MFPs should be treated like any other device with storage capability. Remember, today’s MFPs can store print image data which presents a security risk if they’re not wiped before disposal.

The model’s second layer tackles the security of the physical workspace. Conventional wisdom suggests that the best security is to educate users. However most users don’t pay much attention to security, especially when they find it a hindrance to doing their job. Therefore it’s important to put in place a transparent and easy-to-use security solution, which includes measures such as secure print. With secure print, a job is only printed when the user physically types in their unique PIN number and releases the job.

In more extreme security environments there may be a need to physically isolate devices and use operators to handle highly sensitive or secure output. To increase security even further, print governance tools, which add banners and watermarks to printed pages, may also be used. For some of our clients, we have been able to control some of our printing devices to mark pages in a way which can include unique codes. This enables operators to individually identify pages and also prevents copying.

As these examples demonstrate, there is a wide array of security measures available to meet a company’s needs. Whilst requirements vary dramatically across industries (an investment bank’s needs are different from a healthcare provider or manufacturer) we’ve seen an increase in the number of companies that are aware of the risk, and have begun taking some level of action to make their print environment and company secure.

Securing the Print Environment with Managed Print Services

As we entered the millennium, businesses realised that the internet age brought with it more end-user printing. Due to increasingly large volumes, many global businesses looked for ways to radically reduce printing costs. For some, this meant handing over all or part of the print management challenge to a third party. In addition to reducing printing costs, boosting productivity and supporting environmental targets, these companies discovered that managed print services can play an important role in securing confidential and sensitive information. Here’s why:

When they outsource their printing, businesses engage a partner to assume the potential risk involved with printing. To do so, the print partner must maintain a trustworthy and secure print environment – after all security is one of the things the print vendor is selling to its customers.

Xerox has facilitated this type of secure outsourced printing environment with many organisations, including a major U.S. government customer. In this particular project, the client worked on 17 campus locations across the United States from Florida to California. The customer was required to maintain a high-security deployment environment with several unique constraints including:

• the campuses were co-located on military bases

• the environment faced ongoing attempts at infiltration by agents of foreign governments to obtain technology secrets

• the environment required restricted facility access to U.S. citizens

• the customer faced continuous auditing for compliance with security.

We offered a multi-pronged approach to security, incorporating people, which included a dedicated security analyst, as well as standards and technology. To date all security audits have passed; 95 percent of devices are in secure state; there have been no violations of customer facility policies; and, most impressively, there have been no security incidents resulting in the loss or compromise of data.

These days all organisations, whether in the public or private sector, need to make sure they have processes to support security protocols. They need secure print practices across the board and should certify that every printing device is at the correct, custom level of security for their organisation.

Xerox can help deliver this through our managed print services. We’ve watched our customers gain visibility, control their spending, and enhance document security. This helps them free up budget for innovative projects that can improve efficiency and drive competitive advantage.

Quocirca analyst Louella Fernandes has written a very comprehensive report on closing the print security gap, and it’s definitely worth a read if you’re interested in learning more about this topic.

Over the course of the last two years a huge change has happened in the workplace. The office of yesteryear used to have employees working from their desks five days a week, solely on company computers. However, since the launch of smart devices, especially the iPhone and iPad, a shift has occurred, where employees are largely working away from the office and also bringing in their own tablets, phones and laptops to use in the office – something which is causing quite a buzz as employees show off their new toys and gadgets to their co-workers.

This however, has presented a number of issues and headaches for businesses, the biggest being that the devices aren’t supported by the IT department, opening the organisation up to potential security breaches and nasty file infections. Not only this, but it also creates restriction issues for employees as they try to access certain documents which aren’t supported by the software built into the device – for example flash and word documents are a real pain to access and edit, especially on an iPad!

As this trend builds, in-house IT departments may find themselves overstretched by these new devices and employee demands, but there are inexpensive solutions to help combat this. In 2012, we may see increasing numbers of organisations turn to experienced consultants for assistance and support in integrating and securing these new devices. These providers can help businesses to understand how consumer devices can promote better productivity in the workplace, expansion strategies to integrate or migrate solutions quickly and effortlessly, as well as enabling location-free working and raise morale without having an effect on data security or the functionality of applications.

With iPads, iPhones, tablets and smartphones gaining in popularity both in and out of the workplace, this is not a trend which will simply go away. Although it can be challenging to secure and integrate these devices, there are solutions available which can be integrated before it becomes a problem. As a result this will help to create a significant and beneficial effect on the workforce - and after all, a happy workforce is a productive workforce.

Everything Everywhere, the UK’s biggest communications company, has announced that China Telecom (Europe), China Telecom’s wholly-owned subsidiary for the EMEA region, will launch an MVNO on its network. The partnership marks the first time that a Chinese telecom operator has launched MVNO services outside China.

China Telecom (Europe) selected Everything Everywhere and Transatel based on the strength of Everything Everywhere’s shared T-Mobile and Orange network, which offers the biggest 3G network and widest 3G coverage in the UK, and Transatel’s flexible and technologically advanced MVNO platform, which will allow China Telecom (Europe) to launch its service in the UK within months.

Launching in Q1 2012, China Telecom (Europe) will specifically target Chinese residents and businesses in the UK, as well as visitors to the country such as students and tourists.

Marc Overton, Vice President of Wholesale and M2M at Everything Everywhere, said: “We’re delighted that Everything Everywhere has been selected by China Telecom (Europe) as its MVNO partner in the UK. Everything Everywhere offers MVNO customers the biggest 3G network and widest 3G coverage in the UK, making us the partner of choice for MVNOs. We look forward to growing our partnership with China Telecom (Europe) in the future.”

Royal Bank Scotland face the risk of redundancies as the the bank plans to reduce its business in investment banking.

Reports suggest that up to 10,000 jobs could be lost, which an RBS spokesman has said are "inaccurate".

Trade union Unite is writing to Royal Bank of Scotland to express its anger over renewed speculation of thousands of job cuts at the part-nationalised lender.

"Unite is disgusted that the workforce of RBS has today read in the media that further job losses are being considered. This constant speculation and rumour is highly concerning for those who work for RBS," Unite national officer David Fleming said in a statement on Thursday.

BT has announced that it has signed a contract extension with Bristol-Myers Squibb to manage its global network services through 2017.

BT will help Bristol-Myers Squibb derive greater value from its network services through increased standardization and innovation. The contract extension covers outsourced networked services, including wide area and local area networks, as well as remote access, voice, and telephony infrastructure. It also includes sector leading compliance management tailored to the requirements of the pharmaceutical industry, and network security services. The contract extension is global in scope, covering all of Bristol-Myers Squibb locations.

“Working with Bristol-Myers Squibb isn’t just about managing technology; it’s about assuring highly reliable services that enable collaboration and communication,” said Bas Burger, president Global Commerce in BT Global Services. “The needs of the pharmaceutical sector are complex, specific and submitted to stringent compliance requirements. When organizations remain focused on driving their business without worrying about technology, then we have done our job.”

Gartner's U.S. dollar growth forecast for global IT spending in 2012 has been revised downward from 4.6% in the previous quarter to 3.7%. Faltering global economic growth, the eurozone crisis and the impact of Thailand's floods on hard-disc drive production have taken their toll on IT spending.

The computing hardware sector will see the sharpest slowdown in 2012 as the impact of HDD supply constraints on HDD and PC shipments in the first half of the year compound the cautious environment for hardware spending in general.

Through 2015, forecast long-term annual average growth in global IT spending has been reduced slightly to 5.0% compared with 5.4% in the previous quarter.

Shared services framework available for the support of over 4.5 Million employees in the UK

Logica, a leading business and technology service company has announced it has been awarded a framework agreement for payroll, human resources (HR) and finance services by the Government Procurement Service, an executive agency of the Cabinet Office.

The new framework will enable any Central Government, police, education, local authority, health and any partially funded or fully funded public sector entity to benefit from shared services without a complicated or expensive procurement cycle. Centralised government frameworks such as this are expected to help save the government £3bn per year* through reduced procurement costs and better contract value.

The new framework includes payroll services, HR systems, HR outsourcing, outsourced training and integrated financial and accounting systems. By sharing in the economies of scale and total cost of ownership, public sector organisations can benefit from end to end services that will enable them to effectively and efficiently run their operations. Organisations which join the framework will reduce the cost of their back-office services enabling them to focus on delivering services to citizens.

Ed Jones, Managing Director of Public Sector at Logica in the UK said, “In the current economic environment it is vital that public sector organisations make cost savings but this can’t be to the detriment of the services they provide for citizens. Shared services for back office functions such as HR and finance are a significant step to help public sector organisations save money, whilst enabling them to focus upon their core business.

Big Blue officials has announced that the company has agreed to buy a company called Green Hat that has offices in London, UK, and Wilmington, Del.

IBM has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Green Hat, a leader in software quality and testing solutions for the cloud and other environments. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Upon the acquisition close, Green Hat will join IBM’s Rational Software business. When combined with the IBM Rational Solution for Collaborative Lifecycle Management, developers and testers can achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency, effectiveness, and collaboration while delivering quality software to their business.

“This acquisition extends IBM’s leadership in driving business agility and software quality by changing the way enterprises can manage software development cost, test cycle time and risk,” said Kristof Kloeckner, General Manager, IBM Rational. “Together, we offer the most complete solution available today for agile software development and testing, with flexible options such as the cloud. Green Hat’s application virtualization capabilities will help our customers accelerate their delivery of business critical software.”

Dundee City Council has issued a contract notice seeking suppliers of smart card management services for the National Entitlement Card (NEC) Scheme.

The NEC scheme currently serves 1.7 million people with "multi application smartcard products", Dundee City Council wrote in the notice.

Dundee City Council is the lead council for the development of the Scottish National Entitlement Card (NEC) Programme. The NEC Programme Office team work from Dundee City Council with the Scottish Government, all 32 local Councils as well as organisations such as Young Scot, the Registrar General, and Transport Scotland in the development of a single card using smartcard technology that will provide the public with an easy way to access services.

Councillor Jonathan Cook, deputy leader of Wandsworth council, has commented on Wandsworth's big idea to look at competitively tendering their library and heritage service. They believe a new and competitive market of library service providers has emerged with the potential to improve delivery and reduce costs.

Councillor Jonathan Cook said:"Together with neighbouring Croydon council, an extensive market testing exercise has confirmed there are a range of providers out there with the resources and expertise to challenge the traditional in-house service model. They have the potential to provide a new range of services alongside core library duties, and they could be better positioned to leverage additional capital investment. All this could be done while making the saving we need to balance our books and prevent cuts to services."

Jonathan continues: "Organisations that make our shortlist will be invited to discuss the length, form and content of a contract. New resident services, new sources of capital investment and different management models will all be on the table during these discussions. The talks will be subject to explicit rules and the dialogue conducted in stages, to gradually reduce the number of options we consider until we arrive at our best bidder.

"First we will team up with Croydon, next we must look to share our costs and buying power with more of our neighbours. Councils still considering a library closure programme should follow this process closely. We believe there is another way."