Reliable firewall and mail filtering protection in a security-critical institution

The client

In 2019 a major change took place in the life of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA), when the research institutes were made independent of the MTA. As a result, no research is carried out at the MTA itself any more; it functions as an umbrella institution. It consists of various organisations, such as the Library, the Facility Management Centre (LGK), the MTA Secretariat and other smaller units. Of these, the MTA Secretariat carries out all the operational work that organises the Academy’s public-body tasks, such as institutional administration, management, finance, asset management and control, and IT.

The IT leader

András H. joined the Academy in 2016 as a systems operator, and thanks to his expertise and performance he was first promoted to head of department, then to head of division. As Head of IT of the Secretariat, András and his team are responsible for the Academy’s equipment procurement, IT operations and IT support. Apart from software development, they coordinate and carry out every operations-related task, complemented by service agreements. One of these is the agreement concluded with Andrews in 2011, which covers, among other things, firewall operation and the MSA mail filter.

Firewall solutions to increase security

In 2011 the head of division preceding András H. judged that, to increase the MTA’s IT security, they needed a partner able to deliver a professional firewall service. In line with the requirements, Andrews installed three Active-Backup ALF firewall clusters, which have since been extended with around 250 VPN tunnels.

Building an e-mail line of defence

As the cooperation progressed, the repertoire was extended beyond the firewall with the MSA mail filtering service, based on the needs of the MTA Secretariat. Today more than 95% of incoming e-mails are unsolicited, so it was important for the team of the MTA Secretariat to spare themselves the constant flow of junk mail and malicious, phishing messages. Thanks to the MSA filter, the colleagues encounter a minimal amount of advertising and spam content, and are also spared ransomware and viruses. To achieve this, Andrews uses automatically updated keyword databases and applies custom rules as well.

The secret of a calm working environment

András H. highlighted flexibility and high professional competence as the strengths of Andrews. He said that in his experience the Andrews team provides support even in areas they do not operate, yet they are able to help at an outstanding professional level.

András also mentioned that Andrews has a 24/7 customer service, so they are practically available at any time, which saves him and his team a great deal of stress. Moreover, they always get a quick and professional answer to their questions, whether by phone or through the Andrews ticketing system.

The kind of professionalism and availability that Andrews brings to this cooperation guarantees that the MTA Secretariat works well in its everyday operations. By now they have reached a point where neither availability nor security problems occur, and Andrews plays a significant part in this.

IT security consulting beyond operations

Because of the limited capacity of the MTA Secretariat’s team, Andrews was also asked to work out together a strategy that supports them in further development in the medium and long term. Although maintaining and improving the current technologies also plays an important role, there is a great advantage in having an external expert look at the organisation with fresh eyes, examine development opportunities and propose the introduction of new technologies.