National Instruments
The Challenge
National Instruments needed to replace its existing “home grown” anti-spam solution that could no longer keep up with the influx of unsolicited email. The company also wanted to ensure its employees had a flexible, user-friendly solution that allows for individually tailored safe- and block-lists to best meet employee needs without the risk of false positives.
The Solution
Proofpoint set up a test environment that allowed National Instruments to examine in-depth how the Enterprise Protection could effectively cleanse the email channel of all message-borne threats, including spam, viruses and phishing attacks. During the test, the Proofpoint Enterprise Protection identified more than 95% of incoming messages as spam with virtually no false positives.
The Results
Following the successful test, the National Instruments team moved to a full-scale implementation. Since rolling out the Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, National Instruments continues to reap the benefits of superior spam blocking, and routinely receive positive feedback from employees.
The Challenge
Think globally, act locally
The challenge for National Instruments in implementing an anti-spam solution lay in the diversity and distribution of its users. National Instruments has thousands of user inboxes located in 44 countries worldwide. They had to be absolutely sure that the anti-spam solution we selected matched our needs from the perspective of both infrastructure and corporate culture. With so many international locations, they had to block a wide range spam attacks and accommodate an equally diverse range of end user spam-blocking preferences.
The typical end user at National Instruments ranges from highly technical engineers to manufacturing and sales personnel located all over the world. With the requirements for the company's anti-spam solution clearly outlined, they commenced testing products from numerous vendors. The tests consisted of a month-long evaluation beginning first with a test sampling of 50 users email systems in audit mode. They assessed the results for two weeks and then expanded the test to the entire company's email stream for an additional two weeks.
The Solution
Not every solution met the strict standards of National Instruments. Using Proofpoint, National Instruments achieved well over 95% accuracy out-of-the-box, and for most users the company was able to block spam with 99% accuracy. During the pilot program, Proofpoint accurately blocked incoming spam (which represented 80% of the total mail volume at National Instruments) with a high degree of confidence. Only 2% of those messages were identified as "probable spam," allowing National Instruments to adopt aggressive spam elimination policies and discard undesired email messages before they can affect downstream systems.
The Results
Single platform, worldwide solution
Following the successful test, the National Instruments team moved to a full-scale implementation. Since rolling out the Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, National Instruments continues to reap the benefits of superior spam blocking, and routinely receive positive feedback from employees.
According to National Instruments, Proofpoint's execution, from pre-sales through testing, all the way to the final sale and implementation, was flawless. “Proofpoint provided excellent, knowledgeable support and was genuinely interested in tuning the solution to best meet the needs of National Instruments. The feedback from our user base has been outstanding. People cannot stop talking about the solution and the fact that their spam disappeared virtually overnight.”