Bharat Thakrar, Head of Business Resilience Services, BT Global Security will speak at next year's CIPRE His presentation will discuss is there a compelling case for Convergence (Physical, logical, BC), and does it help in defending against APTs and blended threats? A BT PLC case example illustrates the journey and the pitfalls. Repeatedly on previous occasions the case has been made for various security disciplines to come together in joined-up working and realise the benefits of integrated and merged operation (e.g. Physical, logical security, BCM, etc). And time and again this as proved to be more problematic and less realistic. Whether it is the cultural differences between Physical Security and Information Security or the organisational clashes associated with merging disparate operational units - the result has been that little value has been derived from these attempts at convergence. There is convincing evidence, however, that this status quo is now changing. Not only are there more compelling internal drivers for change (e.g. physical building security is much more effective when combined identity and access management systems such as ID cards); but the emergence of new ‘blended' agents (e.g. Stuxnet) has meant that companies who do not have a more robust integrated risk-based defence posture will find themselves exposed and far more vulnerable to these advanced security exploits. The economic argument is now also much more compelling - forcing organisations to identify and reduce overlaps in resources, and implement more common/standardised and streamlined processes and simplified governance and reporting structures across all the major risk disciplines. Using the BT case study, the presentation poses the question whether progress towards greater levels of convergence is now inevitable and contrasts this against the organisational and cultural changes necessary to make security convergence effective and workable. To visit the web site go to: www.cipre-expo.com To join the discussion LinkedIn click here www.worldsecurity-index.com the only official media partner

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