NetSpective Case Studies

West Georgia National Bank

West Georgia National Bank
Amy Wood, Network Administrator

West Georgia National Bank, WGNB, is an independent community bank operating 7 offices in West Georgia. WGNB services thousands of customers and has assets in excess of $350 million. 140 WGNB employees have Internet access under management.

Situation

WGNB relies heavily on its network. Optimizing network performance and reliability isn't just essential – it's mission critical. That's because all critical banking systems reside centrally on an AS-400, and are accessed remotely via the bank's internal 10/100 Base-T network. Each of WGNB's locations is connected to the corporate network via a dedicated Frame Relay circuit. Internet access is provided by a T-1 connection through a single firewall. With Internet banking growing among WGNB's customer base, customer service reps need fast, reliable Internet access at their desktops.

As a National bank, WGNB is regulated by the OCC. Regulators serve to protect the integrity of customer accounts and information. Viruses and hackers are real threats. Employee Internet access must be monitored. It's not all just about regulations. "We're in the people business," says Wood. "We work hard every day to earn the trust and confidence of our customers. Many of our locations see hundreds of customers per day. Associates workspaces are often in full view of customers. As a result, any inappropriate Internet usage would reflect poorly on WGNB. We just couldn't afford to have a single incident."

Solution

As a result, it's important to be able to spot individuals who pose a risk to WGNB. With NetSpective's robust reporting engine, WGNB is able to do this centrally – across all locations. "Thanks to NetSpective, I get information on every user I support, across all locations, without leaving my desk."

According to Wood, among the most important requirements for an Internet access filtering solution is the ability to provide reliable, high-speed control without introducing a potential point of failure or performance degradation into the network. "NetSpective was a clear winner in that regard." says Wood. "Its design allows it to reliably handle fast 10/100Base-T bandwidth without missing traffic. That was key for our network."

"NetSpective doesn't impact the performance or reliability of other components on our network" says Wood. SideScan filtering means that it doesn't have to proxy users in order to inspect URLs, so it doesn't carry the computing overhead of managing TCP connections. And because it doesn't have to stop network traffic in order to inspect it for URLs, it provides effective Internet access control without degrading network performance or posing a risk to network stability.

Wood also appreciates NetSpective's Adaptive filtering benefit of "hand's-off" maintenance. As example Amy relates, "We were trying to locate Hooker Furniture's web site. Of course, it is a legitimate business. However, we couldn't remember the web site address and tried www.hooker.com. That address is actually a pornographic site. We currently have pornographic sites blocked. Within a day, NetSpective had it categorized properly with no action on my part and now is a forbidden site."

"NetSpective has definitely made it easy for us to implement and monitor our employee Internet usage policy."