Tackling Spyware Before It's Too Late

When AutomationDirect's spyware problems reached their nadir a few years ago, the Cumming, Ga.-based industrial-automation company had pushed a 10-person IT staff to its working limits. Every security solution they had tried already had meant time- and money-guzzling remediation efforts, so when a solution provider suggested a suite from San Diego-based Websense Inc., they were open to trying something new.

"It wasn't a daily problem; it was an hourly problem," said Mike Miller of Dallas-based solution provider ANI Direct. "We were a good partner with Websense then as well as now, so I was able to pitch the A-to-Zs of Websense and figure out which solution would get at the problem. They had the Enterprise suite at first but ended up upgrading to the Websense Lockdown because things had gotten bad."

According to AutomationDirect IT security analyst Tim Lawrence, the IT team was devoting nearly half its man-hours to spyware cleanup on employee computers. As a direct seller of automation and industrial control products—including pushbuttons, PLCS, AC drives and motors, and operator interfaces—AutomationDirect had to be able to keep up with minute-by-minute demand orders from its 1,900-page catalog and online database.

"When I first came to work here, all we did was clean spyware," Lawrence said. "I had worked for AT&T earlier in my career, so I had managed Websense boxes and knew what they were about. We tried other products at AutomationDirect to combat spyware, but the problems were very CPU-intensive."

Lawrence said that when Miller examined potential solutions, he looked at the long view—it wasn't just spyware that was hurting AutomationDirect, it was really the demands on its IT staff that were reacting to, not preventing, the security breaches. Since the initial Websense deployment in 2005, AutomationDirect has continued to upgrade its Websense suite, and in March 2008 upgraded it yet again.

"I worked at McAfee from 1998 to 2001 and then came to the reseller side in 2002," Miller explained. "My first exposure to Web filtering was SurfControl [acquired by Websense in October 2007], and when I came to ANI, I started growing a Websense relationship because I thought the product [as well as the pricing structure] was easier to understand."

"If we had to be reactive, we wouldn't be doing our job. [AutomationDirect] is very fast-paced. If you're cleaning spyware off a computer 40 hours a week, you're talking one full man-week. We basically used Websense to replace a person," Lawrence said.

Miller admires Websense for how its solutions stay ahead of the curve, knowing security demands can change on a daily basis as attacks grow ever more sophisticated.

"It's really amazing how spyware has changed," Miller said. "Before it was all about people going to sites accidentally. Now with phishing, hacking, everything ... one employee making a mistake means a whole day gone for the IT department."

"The security limits of the Web are changing dramatically, and now it's much more than spyware and merely stopping [people] from visiting bad Web sites," said Willy Leichter, senior manager of product development at Websense. "It's a never-ending cat-and-mouse game, and in high-level terms it's all about Web 2.0 now."

When asked what separates Websense's solution revisions from those of its competitors, Leichter considered the perception with which different vendors view the problem.

"Security in a real way is shifting away from 'build a perimeter and lock all the doors' to how to deal with mobile users and people who are working 24/7 and using networking sites," Leichter explained. "Our real focus is now on securing the actual data as opposed to just the perimeter. Nowadays, you can't trust content from anywhere."

You're a solution provider with a good story, and Assistant Managing Editor Chad Berndtson wants to hear it. E-mail him at cberndtson@everythingchannel.com, and you might just see yourself in this space.

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