Case study: University of British Columbia

The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a sprawling campus with thousands of users and numerous departments, operating systems, servers and desktops. UBC chose to protect their students and staff with Sophos Anti-Virus and Sophos PureMessage after they experienced an increase in the volume and complexity of converged spam and virus threats.

"Sophos has an intimate understanding of the complexity of the university environment and the need to manage multiple threats through an integrated solution, while allowing a high degree of user control."
Jens Haeusser, Information Security Manager

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Fact file

Business challenge

• Email users at the university were spending more than 10 minutes a day dealing with spam alone. That, combined with computer virus infections, made up an estimated $12 million in lost productivity each year.
• The university’s IT department wanted a solution that offered enterprise caliber security with a high degree of user control and customization at the department level.

Technology solution

• Sophos PureMessage integrates seamlessly with UBC's current mail management configuration.
• Sophos Anti-Virus provides rapid virus updates, 24/7 support, and comprehensive platform coverage.

Business results

• The university is seeing a spam catch rate of 99% and PureMessage has blocked thousands of virus attacks. The university's IT security office has made Sophos Anti-Virus available to all UBC students, faculty and staff free of charge for home use.