Stirling Council passes security testing program

The City of Stirling in Western Australia has put WatchGuard Technologies through its paces and found that it has come up trumps in successfully countering its annual third-party security penetration testing.

Facing the ongoing challenge of improving ICT’s flexibility and responsiveness to the business, the City of Stirling’s penetration testing has been put in place as part of a best practice approach to IT. This also includes a platform for virtualisation and a sustainability program aimed at reducing the information technology environmental footprint.

WatchGuard Firebox X Peak 5000 appliances keep the City of Stirling’s network traffic moving with up to 2.3 Gbps firewall throughput and 600 Mbps VPN throughput and are powered by Fireware XTM Pro, an advanced operating system that provides flexibility, redundancy and reliability.

The council’s WatchGuard infrastructure is rounded out by two Firebox X Core 1250 and two Firebox X Core 1000 devices. These integrate application layer content inspection, and include WAN and VPN failover to increase performance, redundancy and reliability. At the same time, real-time monitoring and reporting give an unprecedented view into network security activity, allowing the council IT team to take immediate preventive or corrective actions.

“With the City of Stirling employing 850 staff and running recreation centres, libraries, childcare facilities and the usual range of municipal facilities at 26 different locations, the IT team leaves nothing to chance and the robust quality of the WatchGuard product has proved its strength year after year.

“The external penetration tests haven’t got anywhere near the firewalls with the WatchGuard architecture again and again proving its capability to throw back any potential attacks. The firewalls are indeed providing a great return on investment to the city,” says Peter Bennington, Chief Technology Officer, Corporate Information Services, City of Stirling.

“Depending on what firewall you put in, it can be a significant overhead. WatchGuard is cost effective. It is robust, works well and its ease of use ensures that the IT team can focus on planning for tomorrow’s City of Stirling rather than working behind the scenes handling day-to-day technical problems,” says Bennington.