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Spector360.com >>> Case Studies >>> Industrias Nacionales C. por A.
Spector 360 Helps INCA Keep It Real
The Setting
Headquartered near Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, INCA (Industrias Nacionales C. por A.) is a 60-year-old company with more than 1,000 employees specializing in products for the construction industry. INCA is especially noted for steel-related items like rebar, profiles, and wire, and also provides PVC pipes and fittings.
Senior IT Manager Franklin Arosemena manages a network of approximately 350 Windows XP workstations, including remote laptops. He describes the work atmosphere as business casual.
"There's a lot of talking face-to-face, quite a few meetings, very busy," said Arosemena, proudly noting the company's production at approximately 400,000 tons and estimated annual sales of $340 million USD for 2007.
The Challenge
Arosemena said PC and Internet activity monitoring was an IT initiative, spurred by management requests for information the department was unable to answer.
"There was a whole lot we didn't know about," said Arosemena. "We were getting requests on how could know if an USB device was used to capture data? Could someone have used web mail to transfer company confidential information? Is there any way to know if someone is renaming files and why might they be doing it?
"Surfing the Internet was also a concern, not just because of the lost work time, but some of our workstations were picking up viruses. And we wanted bandwidth information … documented. Overall it was a case of ‘let's find out what's really going on.'"
Search for a Solution
"We began to think we needed a forensic tool
something to let us know where, who, how," said Arosemena. "We talked to Bizion our technology supplier and our representative very quickly told us about SpectorSoft products.
"Spector 360, and the type of information we were told it would capture, sounded exactly like what INCA was looking for
and it was all-in-one
that was a big consideration. Perhaps we could have put many different software programs together in trying to accomplish our goal, but it would have been like a Frankenstein monster."
Discoveries
"Using Spector 360 we identified cost savings opportunities," said Arosemena. "For example, with a Spector 360 report we saw the exact number of documents being printed per month by user, and in many cases it seemed excessive. This made it clear to us that some of our printed documents should be saved in digital format, minimizing paper, toner, handling, and storage."
- Arosemena said that even though INCA blocked quite a few websites using a program dedicated to that function, Spector 360 showed employees were accessing these blocked websites with company laptops taken offsite, putting both the laptops and eventually the network at risk for malware and other malicious code.
"Spector 360 showed us that blocked websites were being viewed after business hours and on weekends," said Arosemena. "I thought it was very powerful that Spector 360 recorded data even though the laptops were not connected to the network. Once the laptops were reconnected, Spector 360 gave us all the information. We had the screen snapshots to confirm the activity step by step."
- Thanks to Spector 360, INCA was able to determine that a large number of PCs on its network were unwittingly left vulnerable to potentially catastrophic attacks.
"It was our belief that we had 300 licenses of a security program installed," said Arosemena. "Spector 360 reports showed us only 150 PCs were covered, and we were at risk because of the discrepancy."
- Spector 360's ability to record and report on chat activity also proved beneficial to INCA.
"Spector 360's chat report showed us some individuals who were chatting but were not supposed to have access to chat at all," said Arosemena.
"One of the most alarming things we saw with Spector 360 was that someone had moved 9,000 files," said Arosemena. "This really stood out to us
the volume of activity just seemed too high. Other users showed perhaps 100 to 200 documents transferred. We definitely were concerned about loss of sensitive data. As it turned out, the activity was proactive
the user was actually transferring one network to another. He had downloaded 4,500 files from one network, and then uploaded that information to another network he was working on.
"It WAS a work issue, and thanks to Spector 360 we were able to determine that
we were able to determine what was real."
Spector 360: The Software of Choice
Arosemena said he especially appreciates Spector 360's ease of reporting. Arosemena has scheduled himself to receive an email report from Spector 360 on the first day of each month ... a big-picture view of the company's PC and Internet activity Arosemena has modified to include the Top 20 across many of the more than 50 "out of the box" reports provided by Spector 360.
"We like seeing the Top 20," said Arosemena. "That was the number we were looking for, and it was easy to customize Spector 360 to meet that need
the Top 20 users printing documents, the Top 20 transferring files, the Top 20 users downloading, the Top 20 employees using bandwidth
and so on.
"In addition to the monthly scheduled reports, with Spector 360 I can go in at any time and find out what is going on today. If there is an immediate concern
I can get a view right away
today. I can answer questions like did he or she go to this website, and did they go there today?' Summary or detail, chart or graph
all of it is available for me to easily view, save, and send in an email if required."
- Arosemena said Spector 360's ability to provide him with detailed insight regarding flagged events nearly eliminates unnecessary interaction between management and employees.
"I forward reports to the Board of Directors, but I review them first to look for anything that might be out of the ordinary," said Arosemena. "If something stands out, I can drill down and check on it first instead of having to question an employee unnecessarily. This ability provides a lot of security, with no paranoia. You find out what's real."
- "I feel strongly that Spector 360 is something very positive in our workplace," said Arosemena. "We feel good about the security it gives us, and the control."
Arosemena said INCA's sales and support experience plays a big part in his overall positive impression of Spector 360.
"From the beginning, our sales reps at Bizion were knowledgeable, professional, very good at what they do," said Arosemena. "They have played a big part in the product's success. When required, response time has been great, which really goes back to the source
SpectorSoft.
"The investment absolutely has been worth it … in fact, we are planning to increase licensing."
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