London Borough of Barnet Reaps the Benefits of Web Security-as-a-Service to Secure and Control Web Usage
LONDON and SAN MATEO, Calif. - August 23, 2007 - ScanSafe, the global leader in Web Security-as-a-Service, is providing a safe Web environment for around 3,000 local government workers at the London Borough of Barnet. The council is using ScanSafe's fully managed Web Filtering and Web Malware Screening services to protect its network from an increasing number of malware threats and to control use of the Internet by its employees.
"Our confidence on Web security issues is now much higher," said Rick Sweeney, infrastructure manager at the London Borough of Barnet. "We feel that we have minimal exposure to threats because we are using a solution that has the features, capacity and flexibility to meet our current and future needs. It works so well that we almost don’t realize it is there."
As with most organizations, Barnet has experienced a growing dependence on the Internet and Web-based applications in recent years, whether it is used for providing IT support to its many satellite offices, sharing information with local police and health authorities or enabling Barnet residents to check up on local planning applications.
"Many of Barnet's employees are the teachers, social workers, librarians and housing officers that provide such vital services to the local community," said Eldar Tuvey, co-founder and CEO, ScanSafe. "It is great to know that we are not just providing secure Web access for Barnet council workers, we are helping to maintain government services for its 330,000 residents."
Prior to deploying ScanSafe, Barnet used a URL filtering software solution in several of its libraries. However, when it came to selecting a borough-wide solution, Barnet opted for a managed service because it removed the need for onsite deployment of software or hardware and required no maintenance, thereby freeing internal IT staff to focus on other tasks.
Additionally, ScanSafe offered real-time scanning of Web traffic powered by Outbreak Intelligence, a proprietary security platform that detects zero-hour and known malware threats. By using a combination of multiple, correlated detection technologies, automated machine-learning heuristics, and the industry's largest Web data set, Outbreak Intelligence provides the most effective solution against Web malware, removing malware before it reaches the corporate network.
ScanSafe now blocks an average of 175,000 instances of malware and 60,000 unwanted URLs for Barnet each month, acting as the council's first line of defense against Web threats.
Barnet required a service that was flexible and scaleable and had minimal impact on its existing IT environment. An important part of its decision to go with the managed services approach was the ability to provide protection from new forms of Web vulnerabilities, including threats found on Web 2.0 sites like blogs and social networking sites.
ScanSafe's dedicated Web-based administration and reporting tool, ScanCenter, provides Barnet with a secure portal designed to make policy configuration and reporting easy and accessible. ScanCenter provides automated and customized reports on overall traffic, bandwidth, blocked URL's, spyware and Web viruses. ScanCenter also provides a flexible tool to set and enforce Web usage policies.
About Barnet Borough Council
Located to the north of the City, the London Borough of Barnet is one of 32 local government districts in Greater London. Its population of 338,600 is one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse in the UK and makes Barnet one of the largest boroughs in London. The council employs 7,000 people across 63 sites, with two main offices. For more information, visit www.barnet.gov.uk.
About ScanSafe
ScanSafe is the largest global provider of Web Security-as-a-Service, ensuring a safe and productive Internet environment for businesses. ScanSafe solutions keep viruses and spyware off corporate networks and allow businesses to control and secure the use of the Web and instant messaging. As a fully managed service, ScanSafe's solutions require no hardware, upfront capital costs or maintenance and provide unparalleled real-time threat protection. Powered by its proactive, multilayered Outbreak Intelligence threat detection technology, ScanSafe scans more than 7 billion Web requests and blocks 12 million threats each month for customers in over 30 countries.
With offices in London and San Mateo, California, ScanSafe is privately owned and financed by Benchmark Capital and Scale Venture Partners. The company received a 2007 CODiE award for Best Software as a Service Solution, the SC Magazine Europe Readers Trust Award for Best Content Security Solution and was named one of Red Herring's Top 100 Technology companies. For more information, visit www.scansafe.com.
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