Police Department Secures Network and Improves Officer Safety
April 29, 2008
New York's Suffolk County comprises 1000 square miles of eastern Long Island, and is one of the most populous counties in the United States, with more than 1.4 million residents residing within its boundaries. Keeping these citizens safe is the responsibility of the Suffolk County Police Department (SCPD), with more than 2700 sworn officers.
Like any organization that depends upon computers and laptops, the SCPD wanted to find a way to minimize unidentified malicious attacks on its network. Such attacks had the potential to compromise the department's network, and distracted the IT department from other projects while they dealt with the aftermath of the attacks. When an attack occurred, the county's IT department was forced to individually check and clean more than 1500 PCs across 15 locations. Four to six weeks of IT productivity was lost as the department's staff worked to individually check every machine.
After two virus hits within 18 months brought down virtually every machine in the department, the department wanted a robust solution in place to help minimize unidentified malicious attacks on the department's network. The department turned to Cisco® Silver Channel Partner Custom Computer Specialists, Inc. to select and deploy a network security solution.
Headquartered in Hauppauge, New York, Custom Computer Specialists was founded in 1979 and has been a committed Cisco Partner for thirteen years. Its 300+ employees include 180 Cisco certified individuals, and the firm's core competencies include project architecture, integration, project management, and outsourcing.
"We approach our business from a services side," says Fred Zappolo, account manager for Custom Computer. "When we have an opportunity with a new lead or an existing account, we look at the business and its challenges, and design a solution around that." Custom Computer was well-equipped for the challenges at SCPD. About three-fourths of its business is from the public sector, including state and local government, healthcare, K-12 schools, and higher education, and it had helped the police department with previous projects, such as wireless technology for its police cruisers.
"The police department's disparate computing environment was not optimal for a security deployment, and other firms had warned them that such a deployment was not likely to be smooth or successful," says Zappolo. "But with our combined expertise in Windows and Cisco, I was very confident that we could successfully deploy a security solution."
Zappolo and the Custom Computer team found that, although the department had an anti-virus solution in place, it was managed by a county organization that could not provide updates as regularly as the department's system required. The police department covers a much wider geographical area than other county departments, with 600 mobile units and 1400 desktop machines at headquarters and other locations throughout the county. So when a virus hit the police department, it was much more time-consuming for them to deal with than for other county departments. The county recognized the situation and agreed to provide resources to help the police department.
"We wanted to lock things down much tighter for the police department," says Zappolo. "They rely on us to know what technology is available to meet their needs with the goal of maximizing uptimes of the systems, and helping them to perform their jobs more efficiently." The Custom Computer team first performed a needs analysis to thoroughly understand the police department's challenges. They analyzed the types of viruses that were coming in and reviewed the heavy network access required by the department's functions. Next, it drilled down into individual applications, such as reporting, database search, and geographical mapping applications, to understand the types of communications and access to the outside world that the department needs to function efficiently.
They chose a Cisco Security Agent solution that would be deployed across a variety of servers and implemented on every laptop and desktop throughout the SCPD. Unlike conventional endpoint security solutions, Cisco Security Agent software provides proactive protection against both known and unknown threats including spyware, rootkits, and day-zero attacks. Cisco Security Agent also helps reduce the need for emergency system patching when new threats emerge.
With the disparate systems in place at the police department, Zappolo's team decided against a remote deployment.
"The police department has requirements for some pieces of equipment that dictate they cannot be shut down, so remote deployment was not possible," he says. "In fact, about half of the department's machines could not be addressed remotely and cleanly, so we designed a deployment to accommodate that." Custom Computer also designed into the project a month-long knowledge transfer that would enable the tightly-budgeted department to manage and administer the solution themselves rather than hiring outside support.
With Custom Computer's successful deployment of Cisco Security Agent, the Suffolk County Police Department is saving time and money, and reaping additional benefits.
With a secure network environment in place, the department is enjoying more network uptime, and can fine-tune default desktop images, saving both time and money. Prior to the Cisco Security Agent deployment, the department suffered a worm or virus attack about every nine months; following the deployment, the department has experienced zero successful attacks.