Global Carriers Berhad

Industry: Transportation

Location: Malaysia

Products Used: Hosted Email Security

Global Carriers Embrace Email Security in a Web 2.0 World

Global Carriers Berhad (GCB) has come a long way from its humble beginnings as a tanker operator in the late 1980s. Now it’s a significant player in the oil transportation industry in Malaysia, living up to its corporate mission “To Provide Best Value in Marine Transportation Service.” GCB offers top-notch services in shipping management, operations, charter and property management. With more than a decade of excellent service to its name, GCB is an instrumental player in the shipping and oil transportation industry.

The Problem

As the company’s business expanded, so did the volume of email running across GCB’s network. And along with growth of email came the perennial problem of spam. Spam is a security threat that not only affects an organisation’s system availability by clogging networks and hard drives, but carries with it viruses, malicious code and fraudulent solicitations.

Email security is fundamentally different today than it was only a short time ago. Malicious threats used to be concealed in attachments, but today it is estimated that 90.4 percent of unwanted emails contain a link to a website. While cybercriminals have turned to the Web to deliver spyware, phishing attacks, and viruses in order to infiltrate networks and steal confidential data, they are using email to lure users into their traps. Increasingly these traps utilise the rapidly changing Web 2.0 environment like social networking sites and blogs, as well as other “trusted” sites with good reputations that have been compromised.

Coping with the sheer volume of spam and the escalating number of related attacks can be a severe drain on a company’s resources. GCB made various attempts to use internal antivirus solutions to combat spam, but none of these proved effective. Without a comprehensive network protection system in place, GCB realized that its network was highly susceptible to security threats that could easily penetrate the system via email and other Internet activities. Employees used to spend a substantial amount of time manually filtering through all incoming emails. Obviously, this daily routine lowered its employee productivity significantly.

“Spam, malware, spyware, and virus attacks were constant threats that affected our email system. As much as 90 percent of overall messaging traffic was unsolicited email, it became critical that we choose the right email security solution to address spiraling email volumes and guarantee protection against today’s ever-sophisticated blended threats,” said Kamarul Nizam, assistant IT manager of Global Carriers Berhad.

With an intolerable volume of spam flooding their email server, GCB sought out a solution that would ultimately address its email security concerns and protect against inbound and outbound email threats.

The Solution

In addition to solving its spam problem, GCB wanted an IT solution that required only minimal setup and troubleshooting, and most importantly was fuss free to maintain. Websense Hosted Email Security provided the perfect solution as it not only deals with spam issues but is easy to deploy and manage.

With no on-site equipment to install or maintain, a hosted solution will reduce business costs and complexity, offer bandwidth and storage savings, with no unexpected expenditures.

The industry-leading solution protects against all types of spam, including phishing, image and PDF spam. Websense Hosted Email Security analyses millions of emails and Web requests every day, detecting malware patterns as they emerge in real time, protecting organisations from attack long before traditional antivirus technology is even aware of the threat.

The Results

Unregulated spam can be an IT administrator’s nightmare. Through Websense Hosted Email Security, GCB is able to defend against the full spectrum of unwanted emails and email-borne viruses.

“Email plays a vital role in our everyday business operations. As Websense is able to ward off 99.999 percent of unwanted emails, we now experience smoother email flow and our employees have faster access to more urgent messages,” added Kamarul.

With Websense, GCB’s IT team can now monitor all incoming and outgoing emails easily via comprehensive end-user message management. Advanced message administration features such as multi-criteria message search and history reporting saves a lot of valuable time. As for GCB’s employees, the personal email manager allows them to view or release both inbound and outbound isolated messages to ensure uninterrupted business productivity.

“We are extremely impressed with the results since implementing Websense Hosted Email Security. Our company’s network is now fully protected and secure. As our IT team is currently made up of only three administrators, Websense provides a perfect outsourced solution which caters to our needs and exceeds our expectations,” said Kamarul. Without doubt, selecting Websense Hosted Email Security proved to be a very wise choice for GCB.

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