Anti-virus leader defends financial services giant's network
from attack
Sophos, a world leader in corporate anti-virus protection, today
announced that it has been chosen to defend Aviva's UK corporate
network against malicious virus attacks. Aviva, (formerly CGNU),
one of the world's largest financial services groups, has selected
Sophos's anti-virus software to protect its 35,000 desktop
computers in a deal covering the next five years.
Alongside the UK deployment, Aviva has also implemented a global
framework, which enables its international sites to switch easily
to Sophos and benefit from the high detection rates, stability and
ease of use which characterise Sophos products. This could increase
the number of Sophos protected machines to more than 70,000.
Aviva chose Sophos Anti-Virus following the successful
deployment of the software at Norwich Union, one of its subsidiary
operations. Norwich Union first purchased the software in 1999, and
went on to buy 22,000 licences from Sophos in 2000.
"During the time we have used Sophos Anti-Virus we have recorded
an increase in the number of viruses stopped from under 250 a year
to over 2,500 a month. The need for reliable and robust
counter-measures is obvious, and Sophos coped with everything we
asked of it," said David McRoberts, Norwich Union's UK IT Security
Manager. "We had to have a product with good technical support that
we could deploy and update easily and efficiently. Sophos combines
those three critical elements of quality of product, technical
support and ease of distribution, which is why we've extended the
agreement in the UK, and are encouraging our global operations to
consider Sophos solutions as well."
"Financial companies - especially those of the size and
reputation of Aviva - simply cannot put the security of their
networks at risk," said David Stanley, general manager, UK at
Sophos. "This significant extension of the Aviva agreement is a
great endorsement to the quality of the product and the service
provided by Sophos."
About Aviva
Aviva is the world's seventh-largest insurance group, the
largest insurer in the UK and one of the top five life companies in
Europe. Its main activities are long-term savings, fund management
and general insurance. It has worldwide premium income and
investment sales of £28 billion from continuing operations and more
than £200 billion in assets under management. The group has 64,000
employees and 25 million customers.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.