Catering and hospitality giant Compass Group has upgraded its security and data hosting systems to increase its resilience to internet threats.

The world's largest catering and vending machine company has moved data storage from its UK headquarters in Birmingham to BT's datacentre in Cardiff, and has installed new security devices.

Compass has also replaced a Checkpoint firewall system with network security from Fortinet, to protect its 120-site wide area network (Wan) from viruses, spyware and denial of service attacks.

The FortiGate unified threat management system will provide malware detection, intrusion prevention and anti-spyware services at its 25 UK offices and major leisure sites where it provides catering services, such as the Oval cricket ground, Wimbledon and Cardiff's Millennium Stadium.

Robin Harvey, IT operations director at Compass Group UK & Ireland, told Computing that by improving security and reducing Wan overheads the company will be able to extend connectivity to more of the 9,000 locations across the country where it provides catering services.

'Because wide area networks have become more cost effective recently, we plan to put more and more sites onto this technology,' he said. 'A major focus for us is to roll out PCs to all our catering service sites so they can send back daily transactional data.'

The security systems will also scan for and detect intrusions to its network and protect SAP, Microsoft Exchange email and intranet applications.

Web-filtering modules are also being used to ensure staff cannot access inappropriate internet content from PCs.

'It's crucial that we keep abreast of new threats such as spyware, denial of service attacks and evolving worm problems,' said Harvey.

Email viruses and spam will continue to be handled using netIQ's MailMarshal product.

Compass says it has also managed to cut security overheads by bringing management of its firewalls back into the business.

'Since switching to Fortinet we have been able to reduce attacks infiltrating systems and reduced maintenance costs,' said Harvey.

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