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Vodafone Ireland has recently signed a new partnership with Palo Alto Networks to become the only Palo Alto Networks Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) in Ireland – significantly enhancing its cyber security proposition for customers. Security and LAN Solutions Product Manager, Niall Tuohy, discusses the latest smart working trends and how these new ways of working require enhanced and tailored cyber security responses. Niall discusses how Vodafone Ireland’s expanding proposition can adapt with your changing business needs to mitigate these risks.

Smart Working is the combined use of technology with the flexibility and agility for employees to work remotely, co-work or use their own hybrid models. The benefits of Smart Working are quick to see; for the employer it immediately gives access to highly skilled talent across multiple areas, similarly employees enjoy greater productivity while reaping the benefit of a greater work-life balance.

There is an ever-increasing appetite in Ireland for Smart Working as employers seek to meet the demands of the highly competitive workforce. A Vodafone Ireland study commissioned last year, The future of business in Ireland – a conversation with SMEs, highlighted that 33% of the 300 employees surveyed would change their job for smart working opportunities.

We’ve seen a big shift in attitude towards flexible working over the last three years, it is fast becoming a bargaining tool. Companies are beginning to wake up to its positive impact on the bottom line.

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But while there are many benefits to this modern-style of working, we need to be aware of the challenges and indeed the risks that this style of working can bring for businesses of all sizes.

Different industries and sectors are subject to varied cyber security issues – from the theft of valuable or sensitive data such as medical records or billing information to threats such as network disruption and blackouts, not forgetting phishing and malware attacks. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Expanding your business network to include remote working for employees creates more accessible points which is causing a delay to the rollout of smart working practices because they cannot ensure secure connections via mobile devices or home broadband.

Given such challenges and trends, it is important for cyber specialists to look at new ways of providing services that provide the right cover and support to enterprise customers.

Vodafone Ireland are partnered with Palo Alto Networks, one of the world’s cybersecurity leaders offering customers visibility and control for on-premises, branch, mobile and cloud security. With this partnership, we can now offer our customers not just Next Generation Firewalls but products such as Cortex, the industry’s only open and integrated AI-based continuous security platform that constantly evolves to stop the most sophisticated threats.

Vodafone Ireland also recently signed a Managed Security Service Providers agreement with Palo Alto Networks.

The MSSP agreement enables Vodafone Ireland to provide a proactive 24/7 Security Operations Centre (SOC) service with threat analysis and intelligence along with Palo Alto Networks technologies – providing total cover for those businesses who have employees working across multiple locations.

It is clear that a proactive and not a reactive managed service is what is needed to fully counteract the evolving nature of cyber security threats and evolving working models.