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Bloxx Web Filter Safeguards IVG Energy’s Network and Users from Internet Threats and Malware

Background

In 2004, four energy professionals, who had been working together for several years for a competing brokerage firm in Houston, TX, decided to create a company that could provide superior customer service and more targeted market coverage for energy companies. As a result IVG Energy (IVG) was created. IVG presently employs approximately 40 energy professionals, all of whom possess an average of over 10 years of energy industry experience.

As an independently-owned company, IVG fully realizes that customer satisfaction is the only way to assure its continuing success. The company’s strict commitment to maintaining its customers’ confidentiality and privacy is what sets it above its competitors in the energy brokerage services industry.

The Challenge

IVG didn’t have a Web filtering solution in place to protect staff and its network assets from the dangers of the Web such as infections and inappropriate content. In addition, the company was concerned that the IT team was spending too much time removing malware and spyware from users’ computers. These significant issues precipitated the company to procure a superior Web filtering solution.

“I had to spend lots of my time cleaning computers of viruses and malware. This manual and labor-intensive task was getting untenable and we needed to find a better way of safeguarding our network and users from online malware”, explains David Nguyen, IT Manager at IVG Energy.

The Solution

The company evaluated a number of Web filtering solutions and decided to install a Bloxx 100W Web Filter in the summer of 2010.

“We bought the Bloxx Web filtering appliance as it provided us with all the protection we needed to enhance the security of our network, to stop harmful malware infections and increase the security and safety of our users when using the Internet,” says Nguyen.

The Results

For the past year, Bloxx Web filtering has been delivering superior protection to the company’s 50 staff in its offices in Houston, Texas and Jupiter, Florida.

Nguyen explains, “The flexibility of the Bloxx Web Filter allows me to create and put in place Internet policies for specific groups of users dependent on their Internet access requirements. I consult the reports and logs every month collating information that helps me to fine tune my policies and look for potential breaches which can be quickly and effectively addressed.”

The IT team has significantly reduced the amount of time spent dealing with malware infections with the Bloxx Web filtering appliance.

“With over 50 users being monitored and tracked by our Bloxx Web Filter, our heightened network security now blocks malware at the gateway which has significantly reduced IT management time spent dealing with these issues. I now spend less time on manually protecting the network from malware and removing malware from our users’ infected PCs. Also, I no longer have to replace user PCs in order to carry out more intensive cleansing tasks. I’ve saved nearly two days a week by safeguarding our network from malware with Bloxx Web filtering and can now use this time on other more important IT tasks. If time is money then we have gained around 40% additional IT management resources with Bloxx Web filtering installed at the company” says Nguyen.

Nguyen adds, “The installation and configuration process was extremely easy however as with all major IT projects, there were some initial problems. Bloxx Support is excellent, the engineers are knowledgeable and very friendly and now that there is dedicated resource based in the US, this level of support and service can only improve.”

“From improving Internet security, malware protection and online user safety to reducing IT management time and cost, Bloxx Web filtering is the ideal solution for us and we’re reaping the benefits,” concludes Nguyen.