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Norwegian computer security
company Norman ASA has signed a major contract with
Europe’s largest Dairy Company Arla Foods. According to
the agreement Norman will provide antivirus protection
for Arla’s production and process infrastructure through
Norman Network Protection - a brand new proactive
network antivirus solution.
Arla Foods have been
testing and piloting the Norman Network Protection (NNP)
solution for 6 months. The license agreement is a
three-year contract that includes an antivirus
installation in almost 50 of Arla Foods’ production
sites.
While in earlier days
process network were more or less isolated from the
administration networks, there is now an increasing
demand for connection between the two networks. ERP
systems are being connected to the process network and
Industrial Ethernet is gaining territory on the process
side. This of course makes these environments more
vulnerable to viruses and other malware attacks.
- In our present market
situation we face a challenge where we need to be
extremely efficient as well as cost effective. We are at
a stage of connecting our new SAP R/3 system to our
process network, to be able to serve our customers in
real-time. Our business case was clear, says Jens Roed
Andersen, Chief Information Security Officer in Arla
Foods amba: Need for integration between our
administrative and process networks More use of
Industrial Ethernet in general with support for network
segmentation A general rise in Internet-related threats
on our global IP-networks Cost-effective solution with a
minimum of alterations
We were familiar with
Normans’ Sandbox technology and when our partner, Danish
system integrator Nworks, came up with the idea of
participating in the development of NNP, we saw it as a
good investment. The NNP approach enables us to add an
extra layer of protection to our critical systems,
without costly reconfiguration of the process equipment
itself. In the testing phase Norman ASA has also proven
that their Sandbox technology is setting new standards
in proactive virus defence and we feel that it is a
company with high knowledge about the challenges a
modern production company faces, says Jens Roed
Andersen.
Norman Network Protection
forwards traffic at the Data Link Layer within the OSI
data transmission model, something that minimizes the
latency problem. This allows NNP to operate on a number
of protocols and offer proxy-like protection. NNP has
configurable protocol scanning that can be enabled and
disabled in real-time. Furthermore, NNP can be
configured to block ports, computers and network
segments depending on the infections and the threats in
the network. In addition, NNP uses Norman Sandbox
technology that can stop new and undiscovered worms and
viruses before a detection signature has been released.
- Norman Network
Protection is the first product of the next generations’
antivirus products that we are currently working on in
Norman. This solution means easier, faster and safer
antivirus protection for companies like Arla Foods, but
this network solution will fit all organisations that
are concerned about virus threats, says Bjarne Monrad,
country manager in Norman Data Defense Systems A/S. The
development of Norman Network Protection opens up a new
market for us and we see the agreement with Arla Foods
as a big step towards working with larger European
process companies and other organisations that need
network protection, says Bjarne Monrad.
The NNP solution is being
implemented in cooperation with the Danish system
integrator Nworks, who have been working with Arla Foods
for a number of years. In the pilot project, Nworks have
assisted Arla Foods and Norman in testing the NNP
solution and they have played a major role in the design
of the integration model that is going to be used for
the rollout. Nworks will be responsible for both
implementation and integration of the solution, which
will be delivered as a 24x7 fully Managed Service. As an
add-on to the NNP agreement Arla Foods have bought
Norman Virus Control for all process side servers and
workstations. This solution will also be delivered and
serviced by Nworks on a 24x7 basis.
- We are proud of this
new solution that provides a simple solution to a
complex problem. Our experience is that most
organisations have valuable information resources that
require protection with functionalities such as
manageability, redundancy and scalability. These
functionalities will all be included in NNP, says VP
Marketing and Business development Audun Lødemel at
Norman ASA.
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For further
information, please contact
SAV25
Data Systems
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