Awareness and Education

Security is not just a technical matter. Creating it and living it is a task for people to perform. Security begins in the head. At companies it starts with your own employees. To commit its 56,000 employees in 20 countries to this security consciousness T-Systems launched at the beginning of 2006 a worldwide security awareness campaign promoting knowledge of sensitive data and how to handle it.

At T-Systems it applies to employees at all hierarchy levels. They are made suitably aware of security problems by means of presentations on the Internet, articles in company magazines, poster campaigns and Web-based training concepts. That is how we ensure that all – really all – of our employees are involved in the security process to an appropriate extent. In 2007 T-Systems was awarded the security prize of Baden-Württemberg state for its security awareness campaign.

Yet we have no reason to rest on our laurels, and that is why T-Systems promotes and requires continuous ongoing education of its employees’ specialized and personal skills in the field of IT security. In the course of annual performance reviews, for instance, the individual annual scope of further education is agreed and monitored.

Every new employee is given full job training in his or her field, including detailed coverage of all the relevant security aspects. In addition, in-house training is provided as well as trainings with external systems suppliers. Furthermore, applicants for jobs in security-relevant areas of the company must answer the questions specified in the ISO 9001 quality management standard. The higher the security level, the more stringent the checks are. Data centers are highly sensitive environments where employees must comply with special requirements.