Comune di Milano: BT professional services help secure Expo Milan 2015

Preparation is the best defence

As more than 140 participating countries exhibit at Expo Milan 2015, the city’s expecting to greet over 20 million guests. But Guido Albertini, chief information officer at Milan City Council (Comune di Milano), is expecting some unwelcome visitors too. Why? Because international shows inevitably attract those bent on wreaking havoc in the networks that support them.

As well as taking advice on building resilient systems to cater for unplanned incidents, Guido sought those who can virtually read the minds of hackers and cyber-criminals. He found them in the BT Advise professional services organisation, whose consultants are regularly called upon to share their hard-won major event expertise.

The value the BT Advise security consultants brought was very useful. They fight every day against shadowy underground hacker communities. That brings deep intelligence and understanding.”
- Guido Albertini, Chief Information Officer, Comune di Milano

Fast Facts

• Expo Milan 2015 is set to attract over 20 million visitors
• Need to assess additional demands on the city’s IT infrastructure
• Projects focused on resilience and security
• All-new disaster recovery site with more than 100 virtual servers, hosted at a BT data centre
• Security project covered applications, network hardware and software, people, procedures and policies

No substitute for experience

BT offers a wealth of professional services for your networked IT. When Milan was selected to host Expo 2015 Comune di Milano recognised BT was ideally placed to help with independent advice. BT had the required breadth and depth of knowledge and vast event experience from running the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games network.

Combatting the threat of cyber attack

Cyber attacks today are mostly sophisticated, multi-faceted and highly targeted. And hackers are particularly attracted to events with global appeal. In preparing to host Expo Milan 2015 Comune di Milano engaged BT to establish a first line of defence against cyber attack.

Penetration testing

Not content with simply evaluating its network Comune di Milano went a stage further by inviting BT to hack and probe its network for vulnerabilities. This ethical hacking helped pinpoint vulnerabilities and enabled the council to fully visualise business impact.

New data centre boosts resilience

BT Advise professional services consultants worked closely with the Comune di Milano IT team to specify requirements and map out the architecture for an all-new disaster recovery site, hosted at a BT data centre. This replicates the council’s primary data centre with more than 100 virtual servers.