CASE STUDY
Located 5 kilometers from the heart of Melbourne, the
City of Yarra was established in 1994 following the
Victorian Government’s restructure of local government.
The new metropolis merged the former councils of
Collingwood, Richmond, Fitzroy and Northcote, and is
home to 78,000 people across 19.5 square kilometers.
Customer-at-a-Glance
City of Yarra
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Industry
Local Government
Sophos Solutions
Sophos Endpoint Protection
No of Users
800
City of Yarra A customer success story
Yarra’s suburbs have a rich and varied history which is
reflected in the city’s built form, natural environment and
diverse community composition. In the early years, Yarra was
an industrial city and was home to many iconic Australian
brands such as Fosters Brewery, Heinz and the Rosella Jam
and Sauce factory. Over the years, the industrial focus has
shifted to include a mix of residential and retail sites as the
population and demand for inner city living has increased.
“We knew that it was
important to protect
our network and
over compensated
by installing a
range of products
that we thought
would do the job."
STEPHEN PEATLING
IS Service Delivery, City of Yarra
Business Challenge
The City of Yarra employs approximately 800
staff who work across 35 sites and use over
700 computers and 40 servers to access more
than 60 different software packages. Naturally,
the council retains sensitive information
regarding the residents and businesses of the
district on their networks and is responsible
for securing this data from the general public.
Stephen Peatling, who manages the City of Yarra’s IT
network and is coordinator of IS Service Delivery at Yarra
Council comments, “Our duty of care to the community is to
ensure their private information is kept that way. We store
a host of confidential information ranging from property
notices to family and children services such as health and
child care centers. So, it’s important to our council’s integrity
that the information we hold is not available to the general
public or vulnerable to corruption from computer threats.”
Historically, to ensure the integrity of data, the City
of Yarra adopted a “patchwork” method towards
IT security and used as many as ten different
security products to protect their computers.
“We knew that it was important to protect our network
and over compensated by installing a range of products
that we thought would do the job. This patchwork method
of security was not only time consuming to monitor
and update, but we were skeptical as to whether this
was the best way to keep our data secure and if the
network as a whole was really safe,” Stephen said.
City of Yarra A customer success story
Technology solution
To tackle these challenges, the City of Yarra
contracted IPSec—a specialist provider of
information asset protection—to complete
an audit of the network and develop a list
of recommendations for a new security
system. Based on an intensive review of
the Council’s network, IPSec made three
recommendations for a new system.
Stephen elaborates, “Firstly, IPSec recommended we review
our current antivirus solution. Secondly, they suggested
that the council reviews and installs data protection. And
finally, that we review and install network access control.
Network access control was particularly important given
the range of information that we store. It may not be
appropriate for all levels to be able to access all information
all the time. Prior to this audit, we had no idea that this
was possible or that our data and servers were at risk.”
Based on the audit, the council released a tender to which
they shortlisted the results to three security vendors.
City of Yarra A customer success story
“We were after a solution that would not only protect our
computers and meet the recommendations outlined by
IPSec, but would be user-friendly and low maintenance,” said
Stephen. After considering all the candidates, the City of
Yarra decided to install Sophos’ endpoint security solution.
“We met with Sophos on a number of occasions and
they demonstrated how the software would work—they
even picked up on a virus that our previous patchwork
solution had missed. We immediately saw the greater
security and protection Sophos could offer.”
Sophos Endpoint Protection provides up-to-the-minute
protection for network peripherals, allowing users to
customize and track their protection at any time. With
scanning uniquely built into Endpoint, Sophos reduces the
risk of data loss and malware infection across the network.
“Sophos was also by far the simplest security
solution out of the three. Sophos is easy to use and
manage, and their team was on hand to fully train
and support our local officers,” explained Stephen.
City of Yarra A customer success story
Business results
Nearly three months since implementing
Sophos, City of Yarra Council has had no
malware attacks to date. In fact, 98.9% of all
machines are protected and updated on a daily
basis. Stephen was particularly impressed with
the ease that Sophos was implemented into the
system and the ongoing support the Sophos
team has provided.
“Now there is nothing to monitor unless we are notified
by email that a PC has been infected. We still do random
checks, but overall, the time spent to monitor the system
has dropped significantly.”
“The Sophos team also provides ongoing training and
support so that all officers have a full understanding of
the product and are able to troubleshoot when a virus
is detected. Most importantly, we now have complete
confidence that our resident and business data is protected
from all security threats.”
“The Sophos package was implemented effortlessly and
we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in not only computer threats
but the time we spend monitoring our servers. We have
saved up to eight hours per week monitoring network threats
which has freed up the team to provide quicker IT support to
staff and focus on other areas.”
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