eTrust Firewall  Securely Segments Intranet for Lower Saxony State Chancellery

Granular Controls and Ease of Configuration Protect Government-Wide Network From Potential Threats

ISLANDIA, N.Y. and HANOVER, GERMANY, August 13, 2002 – Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) today announced that the Lower Saxony state chancellery in Hanover is protecting its highly sensitive data and network resources from potential threats originating on the government’s own intranet using CA’s acclaimed eTrust Firewall. eTrust Firewall effectively controls the flow of information between the government-wide intranet and the chancellery’s computing environment, while also providing valuable information about traffic and access activity. The state chancellery’s IT environment includes more than 300 PCs and 15 servers. Its network is integrated into a state intranet that connects the networks of all state authorities in Lower Saxony. Lower Saxony’s IT consultant, Informatikzentrum Niedersachsen (IZN), is responsible for administering the entire state intranet. IZN already had measures in place to protect state agencies from attacks originating from the public Internet. However, there were previously no safeguards between state agencies and little useful data existed about information access across the end-to-end intranet. In that data security studies indicate that the majority of security breaches originate internally, IZN decided to take action to more securely segment the state’s IT environment. This was particularly important considering the sensitive and personal nature of the computing resources used by the state prime minister, the press office and the state modernization department. After an extensive evaluation of potential solutions, the state chancellery selected CA’s eTrust Firewall. Key factors in its decision included granular network access controls, easy administration, and superior price-performance ratio. eTrust Firewall also integrates seamlessly into the chancellery’s Windows environment and with IZN’s existing firewall technology configuration. “CA’s eTrust Firewall has enabled us to easily and effectively address a critical security issue,” said Axel Steding, the chancellery’s IT security manager. “We are so pleased with the results of our implementation that we are strongly recommending that other state agencies follow suit.” The chancellery was supported in its implementation by CA partner Elanity, which designed, installed and configured eTrust Firewall to meet the chancellery’s requirements in the shortest possible timeframe. “To ensure the effectiveness of the solution, we had to precisely define which applications should be allowed to pass the firewall and establish policies for traffic across the network,” said Peter Schroeder, CEO of Elanity. “CA’s eTrust Firewall allowed us to do this with outstanding speed and precision.” The chancellery is so pleased with CA’s technology that it is now planning to implement CA’s eTrust Intrusion Detection solution. “The state chancellery’s network segmentation issues are typical of many large organizations with complex, interconnected resources,” said Peter Rasp, country manager, CA Germany. “We are very pleased with the results that Elanity and the chancellery were able to achieve using eTrust Firewall, and we look forward to working closely with them to address their other information security challenges.”

About Lower Saxony’s State Chancellery Lower Saxony’s state chancellery in Hanover is the ministry of Lower Saxony’s prime minister. It transforms the political objectives of the state Government into concrete plans, coordinates the work of the various ministries, and monitors economic and political developments. The press and information office of the state Government is also part of the state chancellery. Because the state chancellery is engaged in both federal and European political processes, it is also responsible for coordinating the work of state delegations in Berlin and Brussels. The state chancellery has a staff of 320, thirty of whom are based in Berlin and ten in Brussels.