HMV Records installs WatchGuard network security

Stan Beer
Thursday, 13 October 2005 11:00

Business IT - Security

Network security vendor WatchGuard Technologies has installed its Firebox security appliance at music and video retail chain, HMV Records Australia, for proactive security and network protection.

HMV Records Australia has more than 32 retail outlets around the country in addition to its head office located in Sydney. WatchGuard’s Firebox X 5000 has been installed to secure HMV’s Internet traffic against hackers scanning for exploitation opportunities. 

HMV claims more than 32,000 customers from around the Asia Pacific purchase a mix of CDs and DVDs from HMV online weekly, with more than 70% of these consumers based in Australia. 

“HMV currently has more than 1,000 consumers listening to music online from our website at any one time so we needed a solution which would guarantee dedicated bandwidth for audio/video streaming on our website. We also wanted to ensure availability of streaming radio within stores and provide Internet email traffic network protection for our staff, consumers and suppliers.  With WatchGuard we have a best-in-breed, feature rich product set at a lower cost than competing solutions feature for feature,” said Nathan Lynch, IT manager, HMV Records Australia.

“We wanted to provide a secure environment for all retail outlets to connect to head office over a VPN at high speed DSL.  We selected the WatchGuard Firebox X 5000 based on its perceived performance, quality of service and following cost for feature analysis of competing products,” said Lynch.

HMV’s Virtual Private Network runs through the WatchGuard Firebox X 5000 at HMV’s head office using dedicated Internet modem links from each retail site.  The system allows data to be sent and received via a secure "tunnel" through the Internet. 

HMV plans to open six more stores within the next three years with 1.5MB links to each store.
 
Currently, around 20% of HMV’s network traffic is recorded within its head office, 30% is intra-retail site location, while 50% is external from suppliers, consumers and the recording companies themselves.

“In choosing the right solution to handle our future growth, we particularly liked WatchGuard’s Graphical User Interface which provides us with a snapshot of where network threats are at any one time.  We also appreciated the power of WatchGuard System Manager which made it easy to configure the firewall and tailor to our needs.  As a result, implementation was a breeze,” said Lynch.

HMV Records Australia also subscribes to WatchGuard’s LiveSecurity Service  which provides Lynch and his team with support and maintenance alerting the company to the latest security warnings, software updates, technical support and training tutorials.