Webroot^® Web Security Case Study
Cascade Microtech

Managing employees' Internet access, protecting mobile users and adding Web filtering were critical for Godfrey, but he had to find the best solution. At first he considered a hardware approach but with nine different locations, he would have to put a box at every site. Managing extra hardware without providing coverage for mobile users was not a good solution.

"We needed a new web proxy to cover our large traveling population - I was considering protecting our network with an appliance (the good old fashioned way), but it seemed problematic because of cost, management, latency and especially because it wouldn't cover all the mobile users," said Godfrey. "I thought that a SaaS or cloud solution made more sense and should do the job."

Godfrey was facing a complex IT environment that included globally dispersed locations and a growing number of mobile users. He was becoming increasingly concerned with the amount of malware infections on his network. Although they had a leading antivirus product on the desktop, in December of 2008 he counted 2500 different specific infections.

"We didn't have an adequate solution in place," Godfrey explained. "If you are not doing web filtering for malware, you are going to have a higher infection rate."

In addition to the urgent need for better malware protection, Godfrey was concerned about the legal and financial risk to Cascade Microtech from employee access to inappropriate material on the Internet.

"IT now provides a service to HR that enforces corporate web usage policies via website category blocking. From a corporate risk perspective, there are just certain types of Web sites we do not want people visiting. These days there is so much risk involved from an HR and Legal perspective that Web filtering must be part of your basic toolkit," Godfrey cautioned. "IT and end-users win because of less time wasted cleaning infected PCs. HR wins because the category-based filters enforce corporate web usage policies."