Nokia has ramped up its focus on network security, announcing plans to set up a dedicated unit to ensure new products have security functions baked in.
The company will launch its dedicated security unit on June 1. It will be part of NSN's mobile broadband organization, which is in turn part of the Networks business.
Now that Nokia has closed the sale of its devices business to Microsoft, the company's network products business is its main source of revenue. The company said that with the new business unit, it aims to make security a key differentiator for its products.
“The new Security unit will bring together security experts and talent from across the company – customer operations, global services and technology and innovation teams, for example – with the aim of tackling the full set of requirements for robust telco security,” Nokia executive vice president Marc Rouanne said.
“We will continue to encourage industry dialogue and knowledge sharing in terms of security research to improve awareness of this crucially important area of telco business, including with open source software.”
He said the company's recent research on customer acquisition and retention showed that 75% of mobile customers consider security to be the operator’s responsibility.