Heathrow Express Shield Project

BS 7799 (ISO17799) is comprehensive in its coverage of security issues, containing a significant number of control requirements. BAA commissioned Project Shield to move towards compliance with the standard.

In late 2004, Project Shield approached Heathrow Express to review the security around its IT systems. The Tunnel Control System (TSC) was identified as critical to the operation of the service and reviewed against the standard.

Following the review, recommendations were made to improve the security of the TCS. The Shield Project employed Firstco Limited to work with specialists from BAA to remediate the system.

The project set out to deliver the following:

• Secure all remote access points
• Implement a commercial firewall
• Implement a dedicated environment for testing, development and training.
• Apply security patches to operating systems and databases
• Implement a data log analysis tool to validate system activity
• Deploy and maintain an up-to-date Anti-virus system
• Compliance with BAA IT Security Policies

Completed in September 2005, of particular interest has been the introduction of an Intrusion Detection System IDS). The Net-IQ uses software agents on all PC hardware to pass all logging activities into a central database. The IDS employs some 1700 rules to report on activities to the security team. This can simply be password login failures or antivirus alerts up to more advanced correlation alerts based on multiple, seemingly unrelated, events.

The project leaves Heathrow Express in a far stronger position to maintain the operational effectiveness of the Tunnel Control System and continue delivering a quality service to their customers.