X

Miele, a globally recognized home appliances manufacturer, was in need of a comprehensive and reliable security solution that would uphold the company's reputation for quality. The company wanted to ensure secure access and transmission of company information across its offices. Until 2004, Miele's Nordic sales offices were connected via a dedicated Frame Relay network, which facilitated the secure transmission of crucial data. However, the company was seeking a more advanced solution that could offer additional flexibility when integrating third-party technologies.

Mobitel, a leading Slovenian mobile telecommunications operator, was facing a significant challenge in securing its high-volume Internet communications. The company's employees relied heavily on constant Internet communications, with large quantities of data being transferred to and from their mobile multimedia Web and WAP portal, Planet. The portal, which offers a variety of content and services, was frequented by thousands of unique visitors daily. Additionally, Mobitel's network hosted a popular WAP mobile messaging system, allowing users to access the Internet from their mobile phones. Due to the high volume of network communication and usage of multimedia services and messaging system, Mobitel was threatened by several thousand system and security breach attempts from the Internet each day. To prevent these breaches, Mobitel employed four perimeter firewalls to protect employees, services, remote users, and application-development environments. However, the existing firewall solution was nearing the end of its lifecycle and was no longer receiving critical business support from the vendor. Moreover, the legacy system relied on four separate firewall systems, requiring four separate management consoles.

The Judge Group, a professional services company, was facing a significant challenge with their aging intrusion protection system that could no longer be updated. This posed a significant risk to their revenue-generating business applications, which allow contractors to enter time and bill clients. The company needed a long-term security strategy that would not only protect these critical systems but also safeguard their reputation by preventing zero-day web attacks. The company operates from 35 offices and places 3,500 professionals annually, making the need for a robust, scalable, and easy-to-manage security solution even more critical.

Since the 1990s, Electrolux has experienced significant growth and acquisitions, leading to a lengthy process of reorganization. For the IT organization, this meant consolidating infrastructure, focusing resources into a few data centers, and emphasizing connections between these data centers, business offices, and production plants. Connections with the remaining server farms at local sites were equally important. Electrolux had approximately 600 UNIX and Windows servers and about 70 AS/400 systems in Europe, as well as a mainframe. Over time, especially following acquisitions, various problems arose due to the integration of disparate information systems. VPNs had to be established to link different equipment and operating environments while maintaining their ability to be remotely managed. In 2005, Electrolux accelerated the process to optimize its infrastructure and solve the problems of managing such a widely distributed system.

The Superior Court of California, Orange County, faced a significant challenge in safeguarding court records from potential cyber attacks while ensuring secure remote access for authorized external agencies. The court, which operates in eight locations and employs 3,000 people, provides internet services to the public, the legal sector, and partner agencies. The challenge was to expand intrusion protection to all chokepoints without exceeding the budget. The court needed to protect the integrity of court records while allowing online access to a wide range of users. This responsibility included blocking malicious activity from external sources, providing broad coverage in protecting application vulnerabilities, and ensuring secure and reliable access to court records.

PharmaPartners, a key IT-infrastructure provider in the Netherlands' healthcare industry, faced a significant challenge in improving cooperation among medical professionals. Traditionally, doctors, pharmacists, physiotherapists, and other healthcare professionals worked within regional healthcare groups, each having their own separate online networks. These networks were secure but isolated, leading to little sharing of information with other healthcare professionals in neighboring cooperatives. This lack of information sharing had unintended consequences, such as increased administrative complexity when a patient needed to see a specialist outside their healthcare group. To address this, PharmaPartners developed the eHealth Information Concept, a system that links eHealthcare Groups via a rich GUI and a centralized electronic patient record system. However, this required a more secure network infrastructure, leading to the creation of eHealthNet.

Capital Securities Corporation, a leading player in Taiwan's competitive securities industry, was faced with the challenge of ensuring a secure environment for electronic transactions for its clients. As a company that prioritizes the management of clients' wealth, maintaining customer confidence was crucial to its success. The company needed to take every possible precaution to avoid any security breach, as most clients often overlooked the security risks associated with financial transactions. Capital Securities was in need of a cost-effective, all-in-one, reliable, and flexible Internet security and VPN solution that was easy to deploy and manage.

ENN Group, a clean energy company based in China, was facing significant challenges with its network security. The rapid growth in Internet traffic had increased the risk of network security breaches, and compromised PCs could easily spread attacks to other systems, causing extensive damage. ENN's outdated firewall lacked an effective blocking policy, and viruses and other attacks were not being effectively detected and blocked before infiltrating the ENN network. There was also concern about the reliance on a single firewall, which could become a single point of failure. If the firewall were to break down, there would be no efficient way to regain secure access to the Internet and VPN. Managing standalone firewalls was time-consuming and prone to error, and analyzing multiple firewall logs was difficult. Additionally, VPN access and performance were inconsistent, and VPN clients could not select the optimum link without manual intervention.

Embarcadero Technologies, a medium-sized technology company with a global presence, faced a significant challenge as it expanded its operations. The company's growth strategy involved acquiring small software development companies, which necessitated the need for a secure, efficient, and cost-effective Virtual Private Network (VPN). The goal was to connect geographically dispersed talent into flexible project teams to bring products to market quickly. However, as a mid-sized company, Embarcadero had a mid-sized budget for its IT infrastructure. The company needed a solution that would not only meet its security needs but also foster cross-site teamwork, enable efficient IT support, and be scalable enough to support further expansion.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), a comprehensive research-led university, faced a significant challenge in handling massive loads of data traffic across its campus network. With its data center growing exponentially, the university turned to virtualization to optimize its server and network resources, reduce costs, and save data center real estate. However, data center virtualization came with its own set of challenges, particularly concerning security. Legacy tools often did not provide the control and visibility needed to extend protection within virtual environments. The university needed a solution that could deliver security in a dynamic environment, inspect all traffic between various virtual machines, immediately and automatically apply protection when new virtual machines were created, and provide central administration to reduce management complexities.

Prokit’s Industries Co., Ltd., a leading manufacturer of hand tools, power tools, soldering equipment, test instruments and accessories, was facing a significant challenge in increasing e-commerce adoption by its business partners and customers. The company needed to enable access to its internal and external business portals from multiple internet-enabled devices. This was crucial for the company's global operations, with distribution to more than 90 countries worldwide and a sales and distribution network covering five continents. Additionally, Prokit’s was looking to reduce costs and simplify network security management. The company required a highly secure solution to enable remote access to its distribution and business partner portals from multiple internet-enabled devices. It was also necessary to ensure robust security for a variety of managed and unmanaged PCs and mobile devices accessing the network, provide seamless remote access to distribution and business portals, and maximize efficiency through centralized network security management.

Assefaz, a non-profit healthcare service provider in Brazil, was grappling with multiple challenges related to data security. The company was using various solutions from different vendors, leading to poor reliability, disparate management, and limited control. The complexity of their security solution was unsustainable and introduced multiple security challenges. Inefficient security tools and applications were unable to support Assefaz’s growing infrastructure. The company also lacked visibility into data traversing its network, posing data leakage and overall network security challenges. Limited control resulted in insufficient security management. Assefaz needed to instill customer confidence, protect personally identifiable information, and maintain PCI compliance as well as state and industry regulations.

Silverton Casino, a Las Vegas-based entertainment hub, faced significant challenges in protecting sensitive corporate data and maintaining PCI and internal security requirements. With a small IT staff, managing a complex environment efficiently was a daunting task. The casino operates in an environment where data integrity and confidentiality are paramount, and it needed to block malicious activity from external sources, ensure maximum data protection and preservation, protect business-critical assets and systems, and meet strict PCI compliance. The selection criteria for a solution included cost-effectiveness, ease-of-use, integrated security solution, and robust perimeter protection.

Ricoh New Zealand Ltd, a subsidiary of Ricoh Company, Ltd., Japan, was facing several challenges related to network security and productivity. With a small IT staff, the company was spending a significant amount of time manually reviewing logs to ensure its proxy servers were blocking access to certain applications and websites. The company needed to control employee access to social media sites and applications, protect against emerging Web 2.0 and other Internet threats, and increase employee productivity. Additionally, they were looking to minimize hardware expenses, safeguard sensitive customer and internal data, and reduce network security administration and management overhead. The company was also struggling with the complexity of managing a proxy server and the time-intensive manual administration it required.

Athens International Airport S.A. (AIA) was facing several challenges related to its IT security. With over 16 million passengers annually, the airport needed to safeguard customer data and airport systems from potential attacks. The airport was also looking to consolidate technologies to reduce complexity and improve productivity. Providing employees with secure and transparent remote access to corporate systems was another challenge. Additionally, AIA wanted to reduce IT security operating expenses. The airport also aimed to improve security through the consolidation of technologies and reduced management complexities, provide comprehensive protection on both the network and endpoints, enable a seamless user experience, and reduce costs associated with IT management overhead.

China South City Holdings Limited (CSCH), a leading developer and operator of large trading and logistics centers for industrial materials and commodities, was facing a number of challenges. The company was dealing with an increase in internal applications and large amounts of data flowing between its headquarters and branch offices. This posed new security challenges for the company and its network. The company needed to ensure secure and reliable communication between headquarters and branch offices, centralize security management, strengthen threat prevention functionality, and ensure system availability and business continuity. Additionally, CSCH was looking to increase employee productivity, reduce strain on network resources, provide secure communication between its headquarters and branch offices, and consolidate technologies to reduce management complexity.

Zhejiang Zhongda Futures Brokerage Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the publicly listed Zhongda Group, faced several challenges in its operations. The company, which is a director of the Shanghai Futures Exchange and a member of several other commodity exchanges, had to deal with the proliferation of a mobile workforce. This situation posed significant security challenges on data protection and corporate network access. The growing number of mobile workers necessitated secure network access at all times and from any location. Additionally, the China Securities Regulatory Commission required all financial futures companies, including Zhongda, to adhere to strict data security guidelines for remote access. The company's corporate networks and endpoints contained vast amounts of sensitive data, necessitating a robust data security and business continuity plan to ensure customer confidence. Zhongda's complex mobile office security strategy required central management and remote maintenance to ensure consistent policy management, logging, monitoring, and event analysis.

Servicios Liverpool S.A. de C.V., the largest department store chain in Mexico, faced a significant challenge in enhancing customer transaction security and ensuring compliance with internal and external policies. The company was also striving to achieve business continuity while upgrading its security infrastructure. The challenge was further compounded by the need for a smooth, fast, and transparent migration to a new security infrastructure without compromising in-store sales. The company required a solution that would be fully compatible with its existing hardware and could handle high traffic volume, particularly during peak hours. Network latency was a critical concern, as even delays of less than a second could result in significant sales losses.

West Australian Newspapers Group, the leading media group in Western Australia, faced a significant challenge in maintaining PCI and internal security requirements in a deadline-driven environment. The group, which employs approximately 1,400 staff, needed to efficiently manage a complex network with a small IT staff. The key components for enforcing policies and tackling network security challenges were comprehensive protection, management, and reliability. The group also needed to meet strict PCI compliance within a large scale advertising sales call center, ensure maximum data protection and preservation, reduce management overhead while increasing the ability to centrally diagnose and fix network security issues, and provide centralized event correlation and management.

Bank Leumi Switzerland, an international private banking center for the Leumi Group, faced a significant challenge in upholding customer confidence and corporate reputation through data loss prevention of critical business and customer information. The bank, which manages the assets of over 4,500 clients in more than 80 countries, needed to ensure it met and exceeded government regulatory compliance standards while enforcing company security requirements. The bank was also tasked with proactively preventing data loss and instilling best practices by adding an additional layer of security to its communications policy. This included maintaining customer confidence and the bank's reputation, increasing visibility into the flow of external email traffic to further protect sensitive data, preventing the loss and distribution of confidential customer data, and thwarting unauthorized and potentially harmful communication practices.

Quala, a leading manufacturer of mass-market products in Latin America, faced a significant challenge in renovating and strengthening its security and telecommunications infrastructure. The company's internal communications were heavily reliant on the internet, including VoIP, video conferencing, business applications, collaboration tools, file transfer, and instant messaging. This reliance necessitated high-performance networks and a robust security strategy. The company aimed to strengthen its security perimeter to prevent unauthorized users from accessing the network, eliminate conventional telecommunications based on unsafe connections, reduce communication costs while increasing network capacity, and simplify the administration and monitoring of network events and incidents.

The Volunteer Center of Sonoma County, a nonprofit resource and referral center, heavily relies on the internet and a network of 40 PCs to run its daily operations and fulfill its mission. The center is responsible for a wide range of activities, from fundraising to providing services to over 17,000 people annually. The center's operations also involve the use of PCs by seniors, children, and teenagers. The center wanted to control web surfing and protect its users from inappropriate content. However, while safeguarding information and protecting users was imperative, the center lacked the knowledge and resources to manage security. The center was in need of an affordable, hands-off security management solution that did not require a security or IT expert on staff.

Beijing MTR Corporation, a joint venture between Beijing Infrastructure Co. Ltd, Beijing Capital Group, and MTR Corporation, operates the Beijing Metro Line 4. As a pivotal part of Beijing's transportation infrastructure, it was crucial for the company to uphold their security protection. The company faced several challenges including protecting business critical applications, securing remote access to internal assets for authorized users, managing 24 subway stations along with independent data and disaster recovery centers, and improving security across the organization. They needed to ensure uptime for services including exchange mail, client management servers, production and business services, and voice and video services. Additionally, they needed to safeguard their Internet, Intranet, and Application Data, protect network planning and OA office systems, and find a manageable solution covering all perimeter operations.

The Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP) was facing a significant challenge in increasing its internet access bandwidth, which was rated at 1Gbps, while maintaining or even enhancing security. The engineering school required a solution that could support quick, secure data transfer, a crucial requirement for researchers involved in international projects. The existing problem was that high security levels led to a drastic reduction in speed. Therefore, a solution was needed that could satisfy the users' need for speed while maintaining an adequate level of protection. The solution had to accelerate data packet transfer and simultaneously handle cyber attacks and other security issues. This required an increase in packet analysis and processing capacity to maintain the necessary performance and security levels. The most significant challenge was finding a solution that could control new dynamic protocols as they emerged on the market, ensuring business continuity without interruption, and maintaining security while being transparent to users.

Quang Trung Software City (QTSC), a government-run software development park in Vietnam, was facing a significant challenge in provisioning security services for its rapidly growing population. The park, which is the largest IT park in Vietnam with over 3,000 occupants, was struggling to manage the ever-increasing security threats with a small IT staff. The existing security solution was not scalable enough to deliver services to the many companies comprising the software technology park. QTSC needed to ensure that their users have secure access to corporate resources. The challenge was to upgrade to a scalable, sophisticated security solution that could handle the increasing security threats without adding administrative burden.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, LTD. - Takasago Machinery Works, a manufacturer of heavy machinery that provides water and electricity, faced significant challenges in securing their network of 8,500 PCs against emerging security threats. The company was struggling to stop business disruption from attacks targeting OS vulnerabilities and protect its intellectual property from leaking through security gaps. The factory needed a unified solution that could provide automatic security updates, enforce compliance, maintain connectivity and business continuity while controlling endpoint access to the network, and protect the network against external infections and loss or theft of confidential intellectual property through unauthorized communication programs.

Bentley Systems, a global leader in the development of engineering, design, and CAD software, faced a significant challenge in maintaining global inter-office connectivity and internet access without compromising security. The company, which has invested over $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions since 1995, needed to protect its global corporate network without impacting its day-to-day software development business. This was particularly challenging given the wide range of old and new machines and operating systems used by Bentley Systems' developers to replicate customer environments. The company needed to block malicious malware and worms from traversing the network, deploy security in remote areas of the world, provide broad coverage in protecting application vulnerabilities, and quickly implement security for the IT infrastructure of acquired companies.

Yankuang Group, a large conglomerate based in Zhucheng, China, faced a significant challenge in managing IT and security for its 50 subsidiary companies. The company needed to improve secure access for its branch offices and tele-workers, which included as many as 80 branch networks and 20,000 computer users. The complexity of the IT environment was further amplified by the high number of different applications running on multiple systems, such as ERP, medical insurance, office automation, email, corporate website, and production automation. Traditional antivirus software and servers access control lists were inadequate to protect its infrastructure. The company also needed a manageable and flexible system that could scale up as its IT infrastructure expands.

AAA New York, a provider of automotive, travel, and financial services to nearly 1.6 million members, faced several challenges in maintaining network security and data integrity. With a diverse network that includes multiple branch locations, call centers, and an ecommerce site, AAA New York required robust security features and management capabilities. The company needed to protect its network from next-generation and Web 2.0 threats, adhere to strict industry, state, and federal compliance guidelines, reduce management complexity, and improve visibility of traffic across multiple network segments. The company also aimed to uphold customer confidence, maintain regulatory compliance, reduce network security management complexity, maintain network integrity, and improve employee productivity.

The Mississippi Secretary of State's Office faced a significant challenge in providing enterprise-grade protection for Android and iOS mobile devices used by its employees. The office supports approximately 100 state executives, department heads, and directors who use their own mobile devices for business. These high-value targets usually have access to more sensitive information than lower-ranking employees and travel more often, making them attractive targets for cybercriminals. The previous solution couldn’t ensure secure connections for mobile devices to the state’s network, increasing the risk of an attacker breaching the device. The antivirus solution also took up space and processing power on the device, which was a nuisance to users. Additionally, the entire solution was difficult to manage as it wasn’t integrated with the rest of the network or security infrastructure, and there were different processes required for Android and iOS platforms.