Nortec’s Palo Alto PA200 Adapts to viruses while the Wildfire Subscription Supports Current I.T. Department
The Background
DECA trains and prepares emerging leaders and business personnel by cultivating relationships with high school and college students, administrators, and other key members. The organization also creates programs and activities for these members, as well as research opportunities to do so. The members are all over the world, so communication is vital to the seventy plus years of reputable success.
The Challenge
As an international company, DECA required an updated firewall and current anti-virus that could adapt to ever-changing virus threats. The firm also needed to keep bandwidth available for staff communication. Plus monitoring usage to find trends in unnecessary social media and entertainment sites that pulled bandwidth away from users working in the office.
The Solution
DECA approached long-standing partner Nortec, in the hopes of acquiring top level technology security and IT support to maintain the infrastructure. Nortec explained the differences in DECA’s current system and the modern technologies that were available.
After running a vulnerability scan on the organization’s current system, Nortec recommended Palo Alto PA200 as well as a Wildfire Subscription. “We were not as current as we thought we were with the firewall protection criteria,” stated Anne Ferrell, DECA’s current director of IT.
When a single engineer implemented these in less than a day, DECA had faster and more efficient updates as well as the maximum level of security they required. Wildfire checks every 15 minutes for new virus definitions, adapting to threats and neutralizing them. Since following Nortec’s recommendations, no viruses have infiltrated the firm’s environment and security is managed much more effectively with added I.T. support.
The Benefits
“With Palo Alto we can see how much users are on Facebook and You Tube and, in addition, we can see how much of our internet resources are being taxed,” said Ferrell. “It all adds up, and now we are more uipped to prevent that and minimize it, allowing our user community to be much more effective and efficient when working from the office.”
With this technology, DECA has the capacity to block sites that are being overused for personal purposes, and thus to inform staff of the misuse and take the necessary measures to prevent future issues. Combining these crack-downs with the improved security has strengthened the network that is the cornerstone of DECA’s legacy.
