7th July 2012, Canberra Australia

Better Network Services (BNS) Group wins the Australian Capital Territory State iAward in the security category for its Security controlled and audited UNCLASSIFIED fax solution for Government.

The 2012 iAwards honours both companies at the cutting edge of technology innovation as well as leading professionals across the industry. Most importantly, the iAwards honours the achievements of home-grown Australian innovators.

There is a need to recognise innovation and what it delivers Australia through the ICT sector. The iAwards program’s goal is to provide external stakeholders from business, industry and government with a clear view of the people leading ICT in Australia and the quality of innovation being produced.

“Our R&D efforts, innovation and agility allows us to deliver relevant solutions to Government and Corporate customers. BNS extends its thanks to Ricoh Australia for believing in our vision to deliver a security based solution for unclassified faxing in Government. I would like to personally thank Mr. Iain Heddle – Ricoh ACT State Manager and Mr. Michael Klink – Business Solutions Engineer for working with us to deliver the solution to Food Standards Australia & NZ.” said Laurence Buchanan Director Sales & Marketing BNS Group.

Technology has existed to secure end to end encryption of classified information for a long time but nobody has ever addressed the needs to control or audit unclassified faxing to the normal Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

A PSTN connected fax machine in Government is unaudited and has no security associated with it. Wikileaks and data spillage via fax is a security risk which BNS has been working on for some time.

BNS has leveraged the Australian Government Information Security Manual (ISM), Australian Government (AGIMO) Email Protective Marking standards and created a unique solution to allow Ricoh Multi Function Devices to send faxes to the PSTN without phone lines connected to the MFD on PROTECTED or other similar classified networks . The solution implements the necessary controls required by ISM to: Authenticate the user, request the classification of the fax (eg: UNCLASSIFIED or PERSONAL or UNOFFICIAL), create logs, retain audit copies of images sent by each individual and provide the necessary network separation of the components which make up the solution.

BNS Group is based in Sydney and Canberra, they focus on secure FAX and SMS messaging solutions for Government and Corporate customers. BNS exports its software to customers in ASIA, Europe and USA. BNS won the ACT State iAward in 2010 for its SMS Solutions used by Suncorp and GIO in the QLD floods. BNS is proud to win the ACT State iAward in 2012 for security in Government unclassified fax solutions.