Välj landThe computer centre of the revenue department in North Rhine-Westphalia acts as a service provider for 112 appraisal offices, 25 special tax offices (corporate auditing, criminal cases), 3 schools as well as 3 state upper revenue offices and the actual finance ministry in North Rhine-Westphalia. It maintains a state-wide data network, calculates the taxes of all state residents subject to tax, and manages all correspondence, such as mailing assessments, tax return forms, reminder or late payment notices - nearly 30 million letters a year. A team of over 280 programmers develops and maintains the software that is used in the state’s tax offices. Over the wide area network (WAN) not only modified data and calculation results are exchanged; the software used in the offices is kept up-to-date as well. In order to protect its nearly 32,000 users from viruses, the security professionals at the computer centre use the Norman Virus Control anti-virus solution from Norman Data Defense and Antigen from Sybari.
The Security Challenge: Comprehensive Protection against Viruses and Other External Threats
“Our position is clear. We maintain a series of interfaces that have to be comprehensively protected against viruses, Trojans, and other external threats. Our communication system must to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Sensitive tax data needs to be protected. For these reasons we decided to make our security management as efficient as possible. Under no circumstance must viruses ever be allowed to enter our system," says Bernhard Hadaschik of RZF Department 15. “That’s why we needed an anti-virus solution that could reliably protect our 150 file servers, 32,000 clients, as well as 150 email servers in the offices of North Rhine-Westphalia’s revenue department. The solution had to be available at the beginning of 2005 and deployable to every office with our NetInstall software distribution tool. Because the revenue department was in a transition period at this time, caused by the migration to Windows 2003, offices with different hardware and software had to be equipped with the new anti-virus solution seamlessly.
Prior to deciding on a particular anti-virus solution, the products of renowned software manufacturers were all tested. After concluding the tests, the computer centre’s security experts chose Norman Virus Control Business Edition and Sybari Antigen. Bernhard Hadaschik summarises the reasons for the decision as follows: “Decisive in our choice of Norman Anti Virus Control was that it provides high-quality, high-performance virus protection." Compared to the other products that we evaluated, the Norman solution with Antigen and its 4 scan engines for preventing malware via email, offered greater benefits. “Norman fulfilled the necessary requirements for complete virus protection coverage from workstation PCs right up to the file servers excellently. Fortunately, Norman was also one of the most economical providers for a solution involving nearly 32,000 users," says Hadaschik.
“Because most malware, viruses and Trojans enter systems through email, this problem is receives special attention in Norman solutions. The excellent update process of Norman Virus Control convinced us as well. Depending on the threat level, our machines are updated with current virus protection signatures several times a day after a previous compatibility check," says Bernhard Hadaschik about the Norman security software.
The Results
“The solution from the Norwegian security specialist Norman Data Defense is used on approximately 150 file servers as well as 7,000 notebooks and 10,000 desktops. The incoming and outgoing email traffic, the file server services, and external interfaces to the workstations of approximately 32,000 users, are all protected by Norman Anti Virus Control," says Bernhard Hadaschik about the implementation. In order to prevent viruses in the future as well, the security professionals at the computer centre rely on Norman in addition to the latest operating system updates. “This ensures that our systems are fully protected and we always have the latest version with the automatic update service. Because the virus scene is increasingly regional in organisation, it is a major benefit when the virus protection developer is located nearby."