Sophos PureMessage secures network with automatic updates
Portsmouth College has selected PureMessage, the consolidated
anti-spam and anti-virus solution from Sophos, to protect its
network and 4,500 users from spam emails, viruses, worms and Trojan
horses. The College, which provides a wide variety of flexible
courses to more than 800 full-time and 3,000 part-time students,
chose Sophos PureMessage for its effectiveness, ease of
implementation, and automatic updating features.
Having successfully used Sophos Anti-Virus for several years,
Portsmouth College decided it also needed anti-spam protection when
it rolled out email to all staff and students. Its previous
solution, a leading open-source alternative, proved too difficult
both to train to recognise spam and to keep updated. Sophos's
hassle-free automatic updates were an essential requirement that
freed up time for the College's IT staff. Sophos PureMessage
processes around 12,000 messages per day and blocks approximately
50,000 spam messages and email-borne viruses per month for the
College, freeing up resources which were previously spent dealing
with unwanted email. PureMessage also protects the external webmail
access that Portsmouth provides.
"With our previous anti-spam filter, updating was a nightmare,
but with PureMessage someone else worries about that and our system
is updated every hour," said Brian Chivers, ICT Support Officer,
Portsmouth College. "The Sophos solution meets all of our
requirements, not least because it runs on our existing Linux
system."
With a large number of foreign students, from such countries as
Russia, Croatia and India, Portsmouth College needed an anti-spam
solution with the ability to handle emails in multiple languages.
Equally important, considering the College's 'right of care' for
students under the age of 18, was the ability to stop emails
comprising adult content. For those users who want to continue to
receive some marketing emails, Sophos PureMessage also has a
quarantine feature that allows staff and students to individually
tailor the spam filter, releasing any emails that they wish to
access.
Portsmouth College is committed to using technology to enhance
the learning experience, with every student having access to the
College intranet, a fast developing learning and information
resource. In total, the College's IT network includes 500 desktops,
and 20 servers.
In addition to the protection against email-borne viruses and
spam provided by Sophos PureMessage, to keep its network virus
free, Portsmouth College also uses Sophos Anti-Virus to provide
protection at the desktop level. Many students still use floppy
disks for coursework and the increasing popularity of USB pen
drives means that the College is vulnerable to viruses entering the
network via means other than email.
About Portsmouth College
Portsmouth College provides a wide variety of flexible courses
to more than 800 full-time students. Course offerings include more
than 40 AS and A Levels to choose from and an extensive programme
of intermediate and foundation level courses. Portsmouth College
allows students to mix vocational and academic courses.
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.