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Blue Coat AV
Green Bay Packers Sack Spyware with Blue Coat Gateway Spyware Prevention
Integrated ProxySG and ProxyAV Solution Keeps Player, Coach and Staff Computers Free of Spyware:
Spyware often unknowingly installs on end-user computers via “drive-by” installs that quietly place spyware on computers without the administrator or end-user knowing. Once installed on the network, spyware impacts the organization by compromising information, breaching privacy, and most commonly – degrading computer and network performance as spyware quietly “calls home.” While spyware does pose a security and privacy risk for organizations, the IT helpdesk is often the primary victim, forced to answer and address numerous help-desk calls from end-users complaining about poor computer performance. These helpdesk calls make up 25-40% of all help-desk calls today, according to recent independent research. The National Football League (NFL) Green Bay Packers recently overcame their struggle with spyware infections, which had bogged down player and coach computers – in some cases to an inoperable degree. The Packers solved the problem by utilizing Blue Coat's gateway anti-spyware solution, which combines Blue Coat's Spyware Policy Control, on-proxy URL filtering and highperformance Web virus scanning to prevent spyware from infecting the network. About the Green Bay Packers The National Football League (NFL) Green Bay Packers have gone on to earn national stature and virtual world-wide recognition by winning more championships (12) over the intervening 80-plus years than any team in pro football. These achievements, while representing a town of just around 100,000 in competition with the country's largest markets, have endeared the Packers to the nation. The David vs. Goliath concept and the team's unique status as a publicly-owned corporation has intrigued generations. The Packers' colorful saga spans 84 years from the "Iron Man" period of the first decade under founder Curly Lambeau, to the present day, which finds Mike Sherman presiding as the team's 13th head coach. Computers Crash from Spyware Infections The Green Bay Packers rely on their computers and the Internet for pre and postgame communications and planning among players, coaches and supporting staff. But an increase in spyware infections was severely impacting any computer use on the network. With anywhere from 150-200 instances of spyware identified on various computers, the performance of computers and the network was brought to a crawl. Some computers had so many infections that the machines became nearly inoperable.
C U S T O M E R P R O F I L E
Spyware was consuming considerable amounts of IT manpower and was putting our entire organization at risk each week, with 150-200 instances of spyware and adware identified on infected machines. We could no longer deal with spyware in a reactive manner. We deployed
Blue Coat AV
gateway anti-spyware solution to stop known and unknown forms of spyware before our internal systems can become infected. -- Wayne Wichlacz, director of information technology for the Green Bay Packers. This would force at least one of the IT team's six managers to spend at least one day a week using multiple pure-play anti-spyware software packages to clean spyware-infected PCs that were continually crashing. “It was causing a lot of help-desk calls,” recalls IT director Wichlacz. The Problem with Existing Anti-Spyware Products Keeping spyware off the network seemed like an impossible task for the Packers. Spyware leverages multiple vectors to infiltrate the network, and this left the Packers' IT team feeling like the only option was to choose among numerous “reactive” tools, each of which only seemed to address one particular aspect of spyware defense. Reactive anti-spyware solutions include 1) pure-play antispyware software, which requires manual installations and only addresses spyware after it infects the network; 2) desktop anti-virus scanners that only focus on highfrequency attacks and only detect a subset of known spyware signatures, and 3) URL filtering, which only blocks known spyware Web sites. Wichlacz commented, “There are a lack of effective solutions in the marketplace for solving the spyware problem, and I can no longer afford to have my team using desktop software to detect and remove spyware in a reactive manner.” Blue Coat's Preventive Anti-Spyware Solution The Packers solved their spyware problem with Blue Coat's preventive gateway anti-spyware solution, which combines Blue Coat AV appliances like ProxySG™ and ProxyAV™ to stop “drive-by” spyware installations, control downloads and installations from known spyware Web sites, and scan Web content for known spyware signatures. Blue Coat AV appliances also incorporate detailed reporting capabilities to help the Packers IT team quickly identify infected computers for a targeted, more efficient clean-up. According to Mark Sollazo, president of SynerComm, a prominent reseller of security products, “Blue Coat has been the first and only effective solution for preventing spyware from landing on the network. Unlike other spyware tools that rely on known patterns, signatures or URLs to reactively detect spyware, Blue Coat provides a preventive approach that inspects Web content for spyware installers and previously unidentified forms of spyware programs.” As a proxy, Blue Coat sits in the middle of the Web data stream to inspect Web traffic traversing the network perimeter that might include spyware. For “drive-by” installers, which can secretly install spyware in the background without any user interaction, the Packers leverage Blue Coat's Spyware Policy Control to inspect, filter and block Web content associated with spyware installation software. This preventive approach is critical when spyware originates from an unknown Web site and when there is no known signature available to detect the malicious program. Blue Coat AV ProxySG™ appliances provide these necessary controls over Web content down to individual users. Wichlacz and the Packers also benefit from on-proxy URL filtering to apply policy control to known spyware Web sites, as well as spyware “call home” domains. These capabilities can block attempted infections from known spyware Web sites, as well as spyware attempting to call home to a known spyware domain. The Packers deployed Blue Coat's ProxyAV appliance along-side the ProxySG for high-performance Web traffic virus scanning. The ProxyAV scans Web traffic entering the Packers' network boundary point for known spyware signatures using proven third party anti-virus scanning engines. The ProxyAV provides high-performance Web traffic virus scanning with low latency so players and coaches on the Packers' network do not notice the scanning of Web content. The Result “Blue Coat's proxy appliances have already become an invaluable piece of our infrastructure, and their gateway anti-spyware solution prevents spyware before it even gets onto my network,” said Wichlacz. Since installing the Blue Coat gateway anti-spyware solution, the Packers have nearly eliminated spyware from the network. The solution has greatly improved the performance of computers and network connectivity, and the number of help-desk calls has since fallen-off sharply. |
