Customer Success Stories
“After we evaluated CounterACT, the search for a NAC solution pretty much ended since it had literally everything we wanted and so much more.”
Altarum Institute Automates Guest Networking with ForeScout CounterACT
Challenge:
- Altarum Institute is a nonprofit health systems research and consulting organization based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
- Like many organizations, Altarum Institute faced the issue of consultants and contractors logging onto the network with malware-infected laptops.
- One outbreak actually shut down an Altarum satellite office for almost two days as the network team tried to contain it. From a business standpoint, deploying a proactive solution became a critical need.
- Altarum also wanted a solution that would allow it to control who was able to get onto the network and what they would be allowed to do once they had access.
Solution:
- Al Wendt, Network Manager with Altarum Institute, and his colleagues considered network access control (NAC) solutions from several vendors, including Cisco. The organization’s first priority a clientless solution that was easy to install and manage.
- Says Wendt:
“After we evaluated CounterACT, the search pretty much ended: this product had literally everything we wanted and so much more. With it, you get three mature products in one–NAC, malicious traffic detection, and vulnerability assessment. With CounterACT protecting us, we won’t have any more two-day shutdowns due to an outbreak. The product is pretty much paying for itself. And aside from the many business benefits, I sleep better at night knowing my network is well protected by CounterACT.”
Results:
- Threat Prevention.
“With CounterACT, malware is contained immediately. For example, an employee opened an infected attachment that started sending out spam. CounterACT caught this immediately and blocked the user from sending any more messages. The employee actually had an updated virus protection program yet it failed to catch the malware — but CounterACT did not miss it.”
- Policy Enforcement.
“An Altarum employee was using various Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications, which are against our security policy. CounterACT recognized the applications, alerted our security team, and the programs were removed.”
- Guest Networking.
“While it’s not against policy for employees to bring in personal laptops, it does pose a threat, and the same goes for contractors. CounterACT eliminates those threats. For consultants coming onsite, we will supply a time-limited username and password that will allow them access only to certain areas of the network for a certain amount of time. CounterACT makes this extremely simple to implement and gives us great flexibility.”