Aosta Valley Region
Industry
Government
Headquarters
Italy
Overview
The flexibility and reliability of Forcepoint Web Security has enabled the public sector to optimize bandwidth and increase staff productivity.
The Aosta Valley region is a Special Statute Region with a population of just under 130,000 people. Despite being the smallest region in Italy, occupying just over 3,200 km2, it employs about 2,500 people in its regional government.
Challenge
A common problem for public and private companies, especially one as large as the Aosta Valley, is securing web navigation. The region needed to define policies that supported a high level of security while preserving employee productivity.
Forcepoint’s approach to human-centric security was of fundamental importance to the IT department, because it allows employees and institutions to safely carry out their work without disruption.
The spread of social networks, the e-commerce boom, and the concurrent availability of internet access on all workstations has created a need for a cyber intervention. As a result the region viewed web protection to be a priority, in order to manage and regulate web access based on content and source.
The Aosta Valley region decided to integrate its existing firewall with a web security component.
“The primary need perceived by the HR department was to, optimize the use of available bandwidth and apply different navigation policies based on the type of user or group.”
— Santi
Solution
The need for an effective and flexible solution led administration to Forcepoint Web Security.
“At first, what convinced us was the positioning of the solution amongst the leaders in the Gartner Magic Quadrant and the proven experience in the sector, but the successful proof of concept was the deciding factor.”
— Santi
The change was supported by the IT department, legal department, and even management at the highest levels. The administrative group determined profiles for all employees and defined the categories of sites for which to grant open or refined navigation. The managers of each area, then have the ability to request exceptions for specific profiles.
Result
The region defined a standard profile suitable for all employess and then established exceptions related to specific job functions. For example, if basic access to online shopping sites is not allowed, some offices have permissions to access e-commerce sites to verify the economic adequacy of their purchases in the interests of the public administration.
Similarly, an administrative group has been set up to coordinate the social networking activities of all the government structures in the region, establishing common rules for all and understanding who needs to use social networks for their job responsibilities. The granular social media controls and user profile management really set Forcepoint Web Security apart from other vendors.
“With this verification, we can see that over 50% of our traffic is now generated by https sites, and that is why we have extended the solution to control more of the SSL web traffic.”
— Santi
Using Forcepoint Web Security, the regional authority was able to avoid purchasing new bandwidth, by optimizing the existing one. Additionally the region had a tangible increase in employee productivity along with an improved ability to individualize web navigation policies. In the near future the region will be looking to evolve their security posture with Forcepoint Data Loss Prevention.
Aosta Valley Region
The Aosta Valley region is a Special Statute Region with a population of just under 130,000 people. Despite being the smallest region in Italy, occupying just over 3,200 km2, it employs about 2,500 people in its regional government.
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