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AI vs AI in Cybersecurity: When defenders and attackers both use AI

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Managing Vendor Lock-In: Balancing dependence, cost, and control in strategic partnerships

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Delivering a secure and agile digital transformation for Orica

Helping the Australia-based multi-national as an end-to-end trusted partner.

Overview
Like many organisations, Orica was embarking on a digital transformation. As the world’s leading producer of explosives, with over 13,000 employees and operations in over 120 countries, it was vital security sat at the centre of their strategy.

We began working with Orica back in 2015 as part of a global network and security partnership. The trusted partnership has really evolved since then as Orica have shifted their focus to become a digital and data-driven company.

The challenge
For Orica, they needed to transform to allow employees to operate from anywhere, anytime and on any device. They wanted to increase productivity and drive costs down, whilst also giving employees the ability to work flexibly at home without any issues. This proved difficult with their static and inflexible network.

Due to their global reach, Orica needed their security to keep up with the ever-increasing number of sophisticated cyber threats. They needed us to deliver a transformational SD-WAN network with associated network security services to ensure it was secure. There were a number of controls included, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) solution, firewalls and secure web gateways.

Security is a key enabler sitting at the heart of our digital transformation.”

Chris CrozierCIO at Orica

The solution
We transformed their static network into a secure, agile infrastructure, shifting from MPLS to full SD-WAN.

We helped them to adopt a Zero Trust approach to their network access. This allowed for significantly more granular security policies to be applied to users, no matter where they were connecting from, whilst also enhancing user experience. We also applied user segmentation to secure certified workloads across Orica’s server estate. In addition to deploying a security policy and posture management platform, Orica transformed their traditional signature-based endpoint security by deploying new global detection and response capabilities.

The result
Users can now work anywhere, anytime. This allows Orica to be more productive, while keeping costs down. And their on-premises data centres are now cloud-enabled. Our trusted partnership with Orica means they now have the best in class security, which is central to their transformation. Chris Crozier, CIO at Orica says ‘they’ve been able to provide a tremendously valuable partnership with teams working on our MPLS to SD-WAN engagement but also the ongoing day-to-day requirements of that network. We have individual projects at scale to be able to roll out the new network requirements and support and finally we get very detailed insight depth and capability from BT to enable to business and drive the transformation that’s required’.

We’re now there as an end-to-end trusted partner. There to protect Orica’s organisation and their customers, whilst also equipping Orica with the knowledge they need in the moments that matter.

The way in which BT and Orica work together is one of true partnership… we’ve worked together to transform the initial contract to now delivering one which is a lot more digitally orientated as part of Orica’s wider transformation.”

Tris MorganManaging Director, BT Security

Technologies

Cisco SD-WAN

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