[July 23, 2008] Moravian College Selects Mi5 Networks to Keep Web Malware and Botnets off its Campus Tweet SUNNYVALE, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Mi5 Networks, the web security gateway company, today announced that Moravian College, America's sixth oldest higher education institution, has deployed its Webgate(TM) appliances to protect the campus network from web-borne threats including spyware, botnets, viruses, and other malware. Moravian also selected Webgate for its unique ability to identify and quarantine botnet-controlled machines, and perform unattended disinfection of compromised systems. "Given the amount of web traffic that flows through our campus network, filtering for malware using a proxy-based system was significantly slowing down the user experience for our students and faculty," said James Beers, networking manager and network engineer of Moravian College. "The Mi5 Webgate appliance has eliminated this network bottleneck and dramatically reduced the amount of malware we see. Since we don't own student's machines, we have to balance respect for their privacy while maintaining the security of the network. Webgate allows us to do this by alerting students when they have an infection and allowing them to automatically fix the problem without intervention from our help desk." Moravian College is a private, coeducational, liberal arts college located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The school selected Webgate to replace a proxy-based solution that frequently got bogged down by traffic. Since then, malware infections are down by 60 to 70 percent. Although the college's IT staff manages public machines, they cannot control student machines. As result, malware infections and botnets are common. When compromised machines connect to the campus network, Webgate informs users that their machine is infected and delivers an automated tool that can scan and clean the computer without interrupting their work, and without IT involvement. "Protecting and maintaining the hygiene of a college network is one of the most challenging and labor intensive assignments in the IT security industry," said Doug Camplejohn, CEO of Mi5 Networks. "Webgate has enabled Moravian College, and many other higher education institutions, to defend their networks against the continuous onslaught of web attacks without slowing down the user experience. Since removing malware is an endless battle on campus networks, our automated cleanup capability is especially attractive to colleges which lack the IT staff to manually clean and fix all problems." About Mi5 Webgate appliances Mi5 Webgate appliances control user access to web sites and applications, while it detects, intercepts, and blocks malicious URLs, active content, spyware, botnets and viruses that users encounter while conducting business through the Web. Webgate pinpoints and shuts down botnets if they are brought onto the network by mobile workers and can perform automated clean up of infected machines. The Webgate platform performs continuous bi-directional inspection of web traffic on all ports and protocols at Gigabit speeds without imposing user discernible slowdowns. Webgate also provides comprehensive reporting for security, policy enforcement, and audit compliance. About Mi5 Networks Mi5 Networks enables organizations to defend their web perimeter, and eliminate lost employee productivity, PC clean-up costs, and data theft associated with undetected malware. The company's Webgate security appliances protect organizations against web-based threats, including malicious URLs, spyware, crimeware, botnets and viruses, while providing control over web and application use. Mi5 Networks was positioned by Gartner Inc. in the visionaries quadrant of the Secure Web Gateway Magic Quadrant report for 2007(1), and named Innovator of the Year by SC Magazine. Mi5 Networks is privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit: www.mi5networks.com. About the Magic Quadrant: The Gartner Magic Quadrant is copyrighted June 4, 2007 by Gartner, Inc., and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. (1) Gartner, Inc. "Magic Quadrant for Secure Web Gateway, 2007" by Peter Firstbrook, Lawrence Orans, and Arrabella Hallawell, June 4, 2007. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]