Networks & Security in Aberdeen

What is different about networks & security in Aberdeen

Security in Aberdeen is frequently driven by somebody else contract. Firms in the energy supply chain get questionnaires and audits from operators asking where data is held, who can reach it, how access is removed and whether it can be evidenced — and the honest position for many small suppliers is that they do the right things but cannot prove it. Most of the work is documentation and access control rather than new hardware.

The second Aberdeen factor is people who are away and devices that go with them. Laptops and phones on a vessel or a client site are outside your building and often outside your network, so device encryption, remote wipe and prompt removal of access for leavers matter more here than perimeter security does.

Questions we get asked in Aberdeen

An operator has sent us a security questionnaire. Where do we start?

With what you already do, written down. Most of these questions are about where data sits, who can reach it, how access is removed when somebody leaves, and whether you can show it — not about buying products. The gap for most small suppliers is evidence rather than practice, and closing that is a documentation exercise first.

Our staff take laptops offshore and to client sites. What matters most?

The device rather than the office. Full-disk encryption so a lost laptop is not a data breach, remote wipe so it can be dealt with from here, and access removed the same day somebody leaves rather than at the next review. Perimeter security does very little for a machine that spends its life outside the perimeter.