Client Story: Sansone Auto Mall.

Network security is a critical component for any sized organization. At Sansone Auto Mall, monitoring network activity and preventing phishing attacks are critical to ensuring the security of their users and continued success of their operation.

"System compromise for Sansone is not an option. Implementing a reliable and tangible way to represent email security activity on our network, in a format that management can easily understand, enables our organization to know that our network, and the vital information that it contains, is consistently protected," writes Omar Orellana, manager of technical operations for Sansone Auto Mall.

Guardian Digital Email Protection Suite provided all the services Orellana needed for his organization to securely communicate online and protect them against malicious email attachments, viruses, and unwanted email.

Serving the entire New Jersey metropolitan area for more than forty years, Sansone Auto Mall is now home to more than a thousand employees working in all departments from sales and financing, to maintenance and repair. "Each department here is dependent on email for their daily responsibilities. Any advance warning of impending attacks, or even competitors trying to gain insight into our operations, provides all-the-more protection that's essential to reducing our exposure to viruses and email threats, and imperative to conducting regular business activities for the company," stated Orellana. As the director of technology for Sansone Auto Mall, Orellana oversees security, administration, and telecommunications. Properly managing their available resources is the only way that Orellana can expect to successfully complete his everyday projects, and leaves very little time to dedicate to ongoing monitoring of the security of the network. It was necessary to find a better method.

"First it was macro viruses, then malicious links within the message body. We needed a solution that evolved with the spammer techniques, and found that with Guardian Digital."
- Omar Orellana, Director of Technology, Sansone Auto Mall

Seeking a product that presents to management a reporting mechanism that confirms the network is being protected, how to gauge the security of the current network activity, and how effective their security policy is, on an ongoing basis, Sansone Auto Mall immediately began to investigate solutions that would ease the daily overhead involved with keeping their users secure, yet provide them with the flexibility to be easily customized to their environment.

Previously running another email security platform in the cloud within their organization, Orellana and his staff already possessed a strong familiarity with other competing solutions, but wanted to implement a system with more flexibility and less ongoing maintenance, and found that in the Guardian Digital EnGarde Email Security Gateway. While there were many platforms from which to choose, Orellana also required a high degree of security assurance assembled in a package that was suitable for others to administer, with reports presentable in a form that management could easily review.

"I needed to find a powerful email security solution that would provide an easy-to-manage way for me to get some insight to the email activity by our users. I specifically looked to Guardian Digital for their concentration on secure email solutions. Appliance-based solutions, while may appear easy to use, are too limited in functionality and cannot scale as our organization grows. Comprehensive reporting and logging, engineered security, and complete customization are far better in Guardian Digital products than any appliance has ever been," Orellana stated.

Looking no further then Guardian Digital, Sansone Auto Mall purchased Guardian Digital EnGarde Email Security Gateway to protect their network from email threats on the Internet today. "Sansone Auto Mall purchased the Guardian Digital system based on its embedded software security, competitive price, and open source design model. My background knowledge of open source and system administration is a great benefit to our organization, but security and open source is a complex process. The ability for us to institute a product that is already tested and proven, as well as being open source, meant that we gained the additional benefits of software assurance, a point of contact should something go wrong, and the ability for my technical staff to manage the product without requiring my assistance," exclaims Orellana.

Defense in Depth Strategy, Unwavering Support
"We've seen more and more of these email attacks in the weeks and months prior to implementing the leading-edge solution by Guardian Digital. You can tell users not to click on links or open attachments from senders they don't know, but we needed a multi-tiered strategy. Guardian Digital delivered, and followed up with incredible support."
- Omar Orellana, Director of Technology, Sansone Auto Mall

After a seamless transition to the new system and a new sense of security as a result, Orellana is pleased with his decision. "Guardian Digital enhances our organization's network security while at the same time enabling me to be more productive on other projects. I am now consistently getting status reports on the system, which to me is an invaluable asset. If I am not conscious of the security of my network at all times, an attack will eventually succeed. The knowledge provided to me by Guardian Digital increases our understanding of activity on our network, and just how important it is to increase protection beyond the firewall," concludes Orellana.