Webroot^® Email & Web Security Case Study
Neopost Group

Overview

For Neopost’s UK IT department, protecting the company’s network from Web and email-borne threats, securing remote workers and reducing Internet traffic by filtering spam and blocking inappropriate Web activity are top priorities.

Business Drivers

Keir Bancroft, technical services manager, has worked with Neopost for 15 years and quickly recognised the benefits of outsourcing email and Web security to ‘the cloud’.

'As global use of the Internet has increased over the last 10 years, both the bandwidth used by the company and the threats that we were exposed to have increased exponentially,' Bancroft says. 'In the face of mounting costs, administrative overheads, and hardware requirements, we made a decision to outsource these facilities.'

Neopost recognised that having two different vendors managing its email and Web security was becoming increasingly difficult.

'There were performance and reliability issues on the email side; it was hard to manage the un-integrated systems with separate interfaces and reporting; and the suppliers were failing to develop their products as the nature of the Internet changed,' Bancroft says. 'Because we had two different suppliers, it also meant my team had to learn and support two different systems.'

Finding a Solution

Neopost decided to consolidate and find a solution that offered both Web and email security.

This ruled out the existing suppliers, so Neopost evaluated and trialled three new contenders.

'We wanted ease of administration with a single portal,' says Bancroft. 'On the email side we were looking at virus and spam protection, and for malware protection and URL categorisation on the Web element.'

After much research, Bancroft decided to choose Webroot.

'Webroot shone with its multiple, best-of-breed virus and spam filtering engines,' Bancroft said. 'We really liked the feel of the products, the reporting and the product development roadmap. All these things made us choose Webroot^® Web Security Service and Webroot^® Email Security Service.'

The switchover was simple according to Bancroft.

'We rolled out Webroot’s DWP agent to all our 700 clients via Microsoft Management Server and worked closely with the Webroot support team,' he said.'The transition was painless.'

Spyware and Malware Eradicated

The benefits of the changeover are impressive and have saved Neopost space thanks to Webroot servers analysing and sorting emails in the cloud.

'Around three-quarters of our 970,000 emails per month are spam, but now our own email servers only receive the genuine messages,' Bancroft says. 'Therefore, around 40Gb of data doesn’t have to pass over our Internet connection to be stored and processed locally, which is a big saving.'

Blocking email viruses and other threats were another aspect essential to Neopost. Bancroft reports that not a single piece of malware has gotten through under the new system.

'Aside from invisibly blocking the huge bulk of data that never reaches our network, an outsourced filtering service is also far better at detecting spam as it can analyse trends, spam sources, and obfuscating tricks across the entire customer base,' he said.

Web Policies Cut Bandwidth Requirement

Neopost found that the main source of risk to employees had shifted from email to the Web. Part of the reason that Bancroft chose Webroot was because of the multi-faceted protection. 'Webroot Web Security Service integrates with our Active Directory and protects against this threat in two ways. It scans the HTTP packets that pass through its proxy servers for known malware, which protects the end user more comprehensively than using a single brand of anti-virus software on their own PC,' Bancroft says. 'Secondly, Webroot maintains ‘block lists’ of known hostile Web sites, so our users are prevented from accessing malicious pages.' Neopost also uses Webroot’s end-user policies to block inappropriate Web activity at peak times. This prevents a major drain on resources. Bancroft explains, 'As our bandwidth is both expensive and finite, priority must be given to business access to the Web. Permitted traffic amounted to more than 125 GB over the last month, and without content filtering this figure would be significantly larger. Using Webroot removed the need to upgrade our Internet bandwidth, and saved us from needing to invest in new servers, software and additional manpower.'

Securing Remote Workers

Neopost has a large sales and services workforce on the road that make up about 50 percent of the 650 UK personnel. With so many mobile users, Web security becomes an even higher priority for the company. 'The client agent allows us to protect them on the road,' Bancroft said. 'Now, a laptop connected to a poorly-secured home Internet connection is still as well protected by Webroot from Web-based threats as when it is on a desk in the Romford office – a major benefit.' With more and more staff using company laptops on home networks, Bancroft remarks that the improvement in overall security gained is quite noticeable. 'If we didn’t have Webroot, it would be much more difficult to manage roaming users and we would need a far more manual and complex process,' he says. 'Most importantly, Webroot gives us peace of mind – the threats don’t even reach our network now.' Before moving to a hosted service, Neopost struggled with the scale of data that needed to be processed in-house. 'With email running to almost one million messages per month and Web traffic at a significant fraction of a terabyte in the same time-frame, a move to a local solution would have required an upgrade to our Internet bandwidth, a significant investment in servers and software, and additional manpower to administer the resulting services,' Bancroft says. 'Instead, by moving to Webroot we reduced our overall IT admin costs by 30 percent.' Keir Bancroft says that moving to a single email and Web security SaaS vendor was the right choice. 'Over the last year, Webroot’s services succeeded in blocking all traditional forms of malware threat, massively decreased the level of risk from Web browsing and reduced the bandwidth on our Internet connection to a manageable and affordable level,' Bancroft says. 'And all this is handled through a single online portal for both Web and email administration that gives us simplified management of the system with good reporting facilities.'

Future Developments

Neopost renewed its contract for three more years to secure email and Web. Looking ahead, it is considering the introduction of email encryption and possibly moving its email archiving into the cloud.

Webroot 385 Interlocken Crescent Suite 800 Broomfield, CO 80021 USA www.webroot.com 800.870.8102

Webroot Ltd. - EMEA Headquarters Venture House, Arlington Square, Downshire Way Bracknell, Berkshire RG12 1WA, UK www.webroot.co.uk +44 (0)870 1417 070

Webroot Software Pty Ltd. - APAC Headquarters Suite 1402, Level 14, Tower A 821 Pacific Highway Chatswood NSW 2067 Australia www.webroot.com +61 (0) 2 8071 1900 - 1.800.029.234

Copyright 2012 All rights reserved. Webroot Software, Inc. Webroot and the Webroot icon are trademarks or registered trademarks of Webroot Software, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.