To approve the renewal of the current Web-filtering solution and the award of a contract for a new firewall solution for Herefordshire Council.   

Herefordshire council operate a data network that is heavily relied upon and widely used by the council, its partner organisations and customers. Due to the nature of the data and information transmitted across the network as well as the business functions supported by the network, maintaining a secure network is vital.

Network security is achieved via various means including firewalls, which protect the perimeter of the network and web filtering which protects from and cleanses unsolicited web content. This enables the council to maintain its obligations regarding the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the information it processes.

In addition, in order to gain access to the public services network (PSN) and to access and share data across the government connect services platform, the network must be configured to and comply with specific PSN standards.

As such, there is a requirement to ensure the councils firewall solution and webs filtering solution are appropriately configured, adequately maintained and adequately supported.

1               Do Nothing- This is not recommended as:

a.     the web filtering solution will remain unsupported, which would leave the council’s network vulnerable to external threats and access to unauthorised web content; and

b.     the firewall devices are nearing manufacturer End of Life (EoL) status and would cease to be supported making the existing firewall solution more vulnerable to security threats and breaches.