Case Study - Leicester City Football Club

Contact: Yusuf Denath

Industry: Sports, Leicester City Football Club, UK

Products in use: GFI MailSecurity™, GFI MailEssentials™

Quick Read

A winning combination to maintain a secure network.

"With GFI MailSecurity and GFI MailEssentials, we enjoy better use of IT time as well as improved user relations. The products are out of sight but definitely not out of mind. Threats of infections are minimized and our content filtering and monitoring by file types has improved." - Yusuf Denath, Business Systems and IT Manager at Leicester City Football Club, UK

Leicester City Football Club uses the GFI GFI MailEssentials & GFI MailSecurity Suite to maintain a secure network environment.

Leicester City FC is an English Premiership football club, forming part of what is arguably the richest and most watched football league in the world. While the club is used to Lady Luck playing her part on the football field, Leicester City FC did not want to leave email security and control to chance a minute longer than necessary.

"Mail relaying was becoming a problem and so was the increasing threat of viruses spreading freely across the network. IT resources were stretched to the limit, and managing a network became frustrating and made inefficient use of IT time," explained Yusuf Denath, the club's Business Systems and IT Manager, pointing out that as a result, the company felt "exposed and vulnerable".

"The net effect was disgruntled staff who constantly moaned at the interruptions and loss of information, as keeping on top of viruses was becoming a major issue. In addition there was no monitoring of type of information coming into the club."

Leicester City FC decided to purchase a server-based email content security and anti-spam protection solution - yet not just any solution would do. Mr. Denath specified that the product they were seeking had to meet a number of criteria, among them:

• Easy to set up and manage
• Ability to quarantine, block, delete on demand with the flexibility for the user to select appropriate option and action
• Capable of interfacing with Microsoft Exchange Server, the club's mail server
• Easy administration
• Ability to run unattended
• Seamless operation
• Ability to scan every email and handle throughput of more than 5,000 emails a day
• Product life of over three years through regular updates.

The club opted for the GFI MailEssentials & GFI MailSecurity Suite to meet its needs: the free trial versions of each product enabled Leicester City FC to test the software fully before purchasing, enabling the IT team to establish that the suite met the club's required standards.

"The 100-user GFI MailEssentials & GFI MailSecurity Suite fitted the bill perfectly," said Mr. Denath. "It allows closer monitoring of incoming emails and attachments and blocks any viruses associated with them at source. Through GFI MailEssentials, we can also send out company disclaimers which was not possible under Exchange."

"We are now less susceptible to incoming viruses and enjoy better use of IT time as well as improved user relations," Mr. Denath affirmed. "We feel the product has coped well and performed satisfactorily for us. Its appeal has not diminished, as we are very dependent on its use. It is out of sight but definitely not out of mind. Threats of infections are minimized and our content filtering and monitoring by file types has improved."

Thanks to the GFI MailEssentials & GFI MailSecurity Suite, Leicester City FC has struck a winning shot against email viruses, threats and spam.

About GFI MailSecurity for Exchange/SMTP

GFI MailSecurity for Exchange/SMTP is an email content checking, exploit detection, threats analysis and antivirus solution that removes all types of email-borne threats before they can affect an organization's email users. GFI MailSecurity's key features include multiple virus engines, to guarantee higher detection rate and faster response to new viruses; email content and attachment checking, to quarantine dangerous attachments and content; an exploit shield, to protect against present and future viruses based on exploits (e.g., Nimda, Bugbear); an HTML threats engine, to disable HTML scripts; a Trojan & Executable Scanner, to detect malicious executables; and more.

About GFI MailEssentials for Exchange/SMTP

GFI MailEssentials for Exchange/SMTP offers spam protection at server level and eliminates the need to install and update anti-spam software on each desktop. GFI MailEssentials offers a fast set-up and a high spam detection rate using Bayesian analysis and other methods - no configuration required, very low false positives through its automatic whitelist, and the ability to automatically adapt to the email environment to constantly tune and improve spam detection. GFI MailEssentials also adds key email tools to the mail server such as disclaimers, reporting, mail archiving and monitoring, server-based auto replies and POP3 downloading.

^{January 2004}