Freely subscribe to our NEWSLETTER

Formerly known as Gleeson Building, GB Building Solutions provides construction services in a number of sectors including accommodation, education and healthcare. The company has six offices across the UK with a total of 400 employees.

When the time came for Mark Hardcastle, IT manager at GB Building Solutions, to review the company’s existing IT security solutions – which had been in place for three years – there were two very important factors to consider. “The management console for the previous solution was complicated, and we really needed to minimise the amount of time spent on administration,” said Hardcastle. “The other important consideration is that we handle the bulk of IT from HQ – 90 percent of our endpoints are administered remotely – we needed a solution that was appropriate for this arrangement.”

Having previously worked with Softcat, their trusted IT partner, on a number of other large scale projects, GB Building Solutions asked Sophos’s platinum partner to put forward their recommendations. Taking the company’s specific circumstances into account, Softcat positioned offerings from the top five security vendors to Hardcastle and his team. After reviewing the products GB Building Solutions opted to deploy Sophos Endpoint Security and Data Protection and the Sophos Web Security Appliance.

Endpoint Security and Data Protection is a unified software solution that provides protection against viruses, spyware, adware and spam and allows organisations to manage the use of applications such as instant messaging and games, as well as the use of removable storage devices. The Web Security Appliance is a hardware appliance that sits at the web gateway to GB Building Solutions’ network and provides a further level of protection against threats from the web, such as drive-by downloads and the risk of infection from visiting compromised websites.

“Not only are organisations having to defend against web and email threats, but they also need to consider how to ensure that their data is kept within the company network,” said Adam Price, account manager at Softcat. “GB Building Solutions was looking for a solution that would ensure this security whilst being easy to deploy and manage.”

“The necessary training, installation, integration and full roll-out of the Sophos solutions took place over the course of one week – all the while we had a Sophos engineer either on site or on call,” continued Hardcastle. “A testament to how simple the process was is that nobody noticed the switch! The new solution sits quietly in the background and we don’t have to spend time on settings and management – we’ve had the burden removed and at the same time know that we’re completely protected.”

Limited budgets, time and resources are making it difficult for organisations to solve the increasingly important problem of data protection. Sophos simplifies the task by incorporating proven encryption technology in one set of solutions, defending all avenues from data loss.

“Keeping data safe is one of the biggest challenges for organisations today – not a day goes by without a new data loss scandal hitting the headlines,” said Jonathan Hughes, VP Sophos UK. “GB Building Solutions should be applauded for taking proactive measures to secure confidential data and protect its employees from the dangers of surfing the web. Solving this problem within budget is no mean feat but GB Building Solutions has opted for a solution that tackles the issues of cost and complexity with a single solution.”