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Formed in 1946, but tracing its history to Walthamstow Greyhound Stadium in the 1920s, the Victor Chandler Group has evolved into an international betting and gaming business with a turnover in excess of ยฃ1 billion.
Profile
The company has a multi-layered sports betting operation that enables punters to place a wide range of bets on most major sports, via phone , the Internet, or at the racetrack. The company moved its operations to Gibraltar in 1999 to take advantage of tax-free betting, and now employs 450 staff there.
The Victor Chandler Group has expanded from sports betting into online poker, casino and other gaming platforms and has more than 500,000 customers in over 160 countries. It also runs an affiliate scheme with a range of other websites.
Because the technology behind its betting and gaming sites was developed in-house, the Victor Chandler Group has been able to market its gambling platforms to other companies, building and managing their online services.
Business
As a 24/7 internet-based business, the web is at the heart of the Victor Chandler Groupโs operation. Staff spend much of their time exploring online gaming and betting sites, either to monitor the performance of their own platforms, deal with a particular customer query or to check on developments with rival services.
Employees also use a Web interface when dealing with third-party service providers, for example payment processing companies or credit agencies.
Victor Chandlerโs traders, who take responsibility for risk assessment, odds compilation or handling proprietary bets, make regular use of instant messaging platforms in order to keep up-to-date with the very latest sports or betting information.
As well as providing anti-virus and firewall security on the desktop, the company protects its corporate network with a proxy-based Web security solution from Symantec at its main Internet gateway.
The company decided to rethink its security strategy when it opened a new office with 25 staff in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
"The Kuala Lumpur office was not connected to our corporate network, so we were looking for a remote solution that enabled us to secure staff against Web threats and enforce our Internet usage policy," says Chris Murchison, operations engineer at the Victor Chandler Group.
Solution
The company looked at a range of different Web security options before opting for a managed service in the shape of ScanSafeโs Web Malware Scanning and Web Filtering.
Web Malware Scanning offers protection from Web-borne viruses and is powered by ScanSafeโs proactive heuristics technology – Outbreak IntelligenceTM. It removes harmful viruses before they reach the network, and identifies and blocks zero-hour threatsโthreats that appear before an anti-virus signature is available. It also delivers protection against threats that use stealth or deception. Finally, it helps identify machines that are already infected with spyware.
Web Filtering provides control over how Victor Chandlerโs employees use the internet. It provides easy-to-use tools to create, enforce and monitor the companyโs acceptable Web usage policy. Using the most accurate categorisation databases, Web Filtering helps manage the firmโs Internet traffic, protecting the network and staff from undesirable Web content.
Results
ScanSafeโs managed Web security service was up and running and protecting staff in Victor Chandlerโs new Kuala Lumpur office from day one of its operations. "ScanSafeโs service has been flexible and really easy to manage," says Chris Murchison. "It has been blocking access to the appropriate sites as well as some nasty spyware and viruses โ nothing has got through.
"Neither our employees nor our IT team have had any complaints."
ScanSafeโs work in Kuala Lumpur could now be repeated elsewhere around the world as Victor Chandler is considering using the service as an integral part of its expansion strategy. The company also has plans to introduce ScanSafeโs in-the-cloud Web security for its Gibraltar head office, where it would be used to provide an extra layer of protection for its corporate network.
As a fully managed service, ScanSafeโs solutions require no hardware, software or maintenance, making it easy for organizations to add additional sites and enforce and manage Internet acceptable usage policy across multiple locations.
Victor Chandler is also is looking at adding ScanSafeโs IM Control service, to help monitor and control the use of instant messaging within the organization.
"We use instant messaging a lot internally and have been hit by a number of MSN viruses recently because we donโt have a way of controlling the way it is used," says Chris Murchison.
For a technology-led business like the Victor Chandler Group, ScanSafeโs managed services approach has another benefit for Chris Murchison and the IT infrastructure team he works for.
ScanCenter is ScanSafeโs centralised reporting and administration portal. It allows IT staff at Victor Chandler to generate various reports ranging from general departmental usage trends to more detailed individual reports. Using the secure, centralised portal, the IT team can easily set Web usage policies for individuals or groups of users. Reporting functionality ranges from high-level dashboard views to detailed forensic audits on specific users.
"If we can manage more aspects of Web security centrally it can help free-up more of our time and cut IT management costs," says Murchison.
About ScanSafe
Visit http://www.scansafe.com ScanSafe is exhibiting on stand G155 at Infosecurity Europe 2008, the annual information security event. Now in its 13th year, the show continues to provide an education programme, new products and services, 300 exhibitors and 11,700 visitors. Held on April 22 to 24, 2008 in the Grand Hall at Olympia, this is for all involved in information security.
