BP Oils The Wheels Of Heated Security Debate

BP has provoked heated debate in the UK technology industry with plans to move thousands of laptops off its LAN claiming it will make the business more secure. BP said hiding behind a firewall simply creates a false sense of security and so 18,000 of its 85,000 laptops now connect straight to the internet, even when they are in an office. Ken Douglas, technology director of BP, said "the LAN has to go" and his work now is to protect the laptops against the threats which lurk online. And it's a decision which has divided the industry. Many silicon.com readers have hit out at the move – questioning both sanity and practicality – but a great many others have been vocal in their praise of Douglas and his vision. "Why not?" asked one reader of the decision. "Most hackers concentrate on LANs and how to break through the LAN securities in place. Individual computers seem to just be regular computers to the outside world and hackers and they may be bypassed."

Source - Silicon.Com