Dominique Gagnon

As companies transition to cloud systems, their network architecture can become more decentralized, resulting in new challenges for routing traffic through security controls to protect users and data. “That decentralized approach is much more difficult to control and more permeable from a penetration perspective,” says Dominique Gagnon, GM, Cyber Security Practice at Bell. The answer is adopting a hybrid approach, as he explains. “There are many benefits to moving to cloud-based security. Some of the key advantages are ease of operations, but also a reduction in costs.” However we recommend a hybrid approach to address latency issues arising with a pure cloud solution”.

Bell’s offering in this area is comprehensive. “We just launched, in partnership with Zscaler, a fully-managed, cloud-based, secure access service edge (SASE) internet protection service that provides protection using the ‘best in breed’ in that domain,” says Gagnon. “The differentiation of our service is that in partnership with Zscaler, we deploy the technology within our Bell infrastructure giving our customers access to the nodes that are deployed in our infrastructure across Canada, thus tackling latency issues.”

When it comes to cyber security, Bell has implemented a strategy with its clients based on five pillars that reflect the key challenges organizations are facing. “First we provide services around what is foundational in security - the existing controls that our clients have in place,” says Gagnon. “We help them make sense of, and can bring more efficiency to, those controls. We're working with FireEye technology to validate controls within an environment and simplify the traditional approach to managing security.

“The next pillar of strategy is around the next generation Security Information and Event Monitoring (SIEM). Our clients tell us that they are not seeing the value of their legacy or SIEM tools and that they are not providing the security alerts expected. So we're partnering with Fortinet to enable the entire automated and orchestrated SIEM technology – one that offers improved visibility and response to security incidents, and brings the best-in-breed, next-generation platform to the market.”

The next pillar of Bell’s technology is around detection and response. “We partnered with FireEye, launching our Bell Managed Threat Detection and Response to bring best-in-class detection capability, coupled with a world-class incident response team (Mandiant), to our clients.

“The fourth pillar is around cloud security, where we work with best in class partners such as Akamai, whose high performance distributed infrastructure allows us to enhance security for our customers. We also partner with Cisco, FireEye and Zscaler to bring a wide range of cloud based security offerings.”

The final pillar addresses the increase in data due to the adoption of 5G technologies. While this is still an emerging area, careful consideration and planning will be required when looking forward to ensure organizations can securely adapt to the increase in data traffic. 

Gagnon and Sansalone are confident that such innovations and strategies cement Bell’s position as a leader in cyber security and digital transformation. “We see ourselves as being an important contributor to the cyber security community in Canada,” Gagnon says. “We have over 400 security professionals across Canada supporting three operations centres, and we partner with the leading technology companies in Canada. That’s why we are the only communications provider recognized by the IDC Marketscape as a Canadian leader in security four years in a row.”

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