St Paul’s Cathedral has proudly soared above the London skyline since the 17th century, enduring the passage of time and famously surviving bombardment by Nazi Germany during the London Blitz of 1940. But in recent years, modern threats from intrusions into St Paul’s Cathedral’s IT network required better protection.
When St. Paul’s Cathedral’s security contract with an IT security vendor was about to expire in 2010, the head of its IT department turned to Sophos to protect the cathedral’s four sites in London, including 400 employees. The IT department supports all the varied aspects of life at the cathedral, and Gerald Wynter, Head of Information Technology, decided a more robust form of network security was required.
Gerald purchased a firewall from Astaro (which has since been absorbed by Sophos). Then, in February 2011, Gerald began an evaluation process for a number of security software providers, one of which was Sophos. It took just a few days to reach a decision.
“From the first impression we could see that Sophos was a solid, feature-filled product with a reasonable pricing structure that acknowledged our charitable status,” Gerald says.
Gerald and his team opted for Sophos Endpoint Security and Control, UTM 320, and UTM Network Security as solutions to protect the staff and systems at St Paul’s. The installation took place in two phases over a number of years. The IT infrastructure at St. Paul’s has been completely remodeled, starting with the rebuild of a dedicated server room, complete virtualization of all servers, and improved cable routes.
“Now everything is centrally managed and controlled rather than isolated machines being protected separately,” says Gerald. “As charities have become more business-focused, we have had to adapt and introduce more corporate IT policies over time. Sophos supports us with this progression.”
To find out more about how Sophos protects St. Paul’s Cathedral, download the case study here.
