Vodafone UK has announced that its Vodafone Secure Remote Access solution has been awarded the CESG Claims Tested Mark (CCTM) certificate by CESG, which is the information assurance arm of GCHQ. For those of you that aren’t familiar with GCHQ, they are the boffins behind intelligence in the UK – so an OK from them is a BIG OK!
Vodafone UK has become the first UK mobile operator to receive the CCTM mark, which verifies the claims companies make for their security solutions for data confidentiality, integrity and availability in the modern government IT environment.
The CCTM certificate means that UK public sector organisations, including those in local authorities, the National Health Service, education, criminal justice, policing, Central Government and the Ministry of Defence, can now recognise Vodafone Secure Remote Access v2.8 as a solution that has had independent assurance testing, under CESG governance.
Vodafone Secure Remote Access helps organisations to protect their networks, devices and data – principally by ensuring staff comply with IT security policies when away from the office. In the tests the solution was tested for its functionality in Connectivity Control, Application Control and Security Policy. In line with the standard CCTM process, the claims made by Vodafone in these areas were reviewed by CESG to confirm they were unambiguous, relevant and representative of Vodafone’s marketing.
You have to wonder whether this is going to help Vodafone win more deals in the business sector – I’d be inclined to think yes, this is going to give them a definite advantage of their competitor operators in the security arena – now it just depends on how much of an emphasis companies put on that – time, and sales data, will tell!