Police Protection with Untangle

Pickaway County Sheriff’s Office

Industry: Local Authority
Network Size: 120 nodes

“Untangle is way ahead of the game, combining all these open source and premium apps into a single multi-function firewall that just works. Untangle was ‘hands-down’ the most cost-effective solution we could find.”

Background

Pickaway County in Ohio has the historic distinction of having the longest-serving sheriff in the USA. Sheriff Dwight E. Radcliff has been in office since 1965. Throughout this time, the Pickaway County Sheriff’s Office has embraced new technology to keep up-to-date.

Protection Inside and Out

Today its staff are protected from online threats both in the office and out on the road. Mobile police units are connected to the headquarters through virtual private networks (VPNs) and their internet traffic is scanned and filtered just as it is at their desks. Untangle provides the VPN connectivity and web filtering all in one box.

Comprehensive Cover

The Technology Manager at the Sheriff’s Office, Matthew Parish, has deep experience with network security. He is highly familiar with the vendors of dedicated appliances and open-source projects alike. Matthew liked what he saw in Untangle. ”Untangle has integrated best-of-class web filtering and combined it with rich reporting, anti-spyware and a host of other services; it’s a complete offering, and really sets the mark in the industry.” Untangle’s virtual rack metaphor has made it easy for Matthew to set up and enforce multiple different web policies for various departments throughout the office.

Open Source Origins

Matthew originally installed Untangle’s free open-source package at the Sheriff’s Office back in 2007. However, he subsequently upgraded to the premium offering for its additional features: “Untangle now connects to our Active Directory server, which allows us to monitor, track and log web browsing by user account and sign-on. No other product we looked at can do this.”

Implementing Untangle

Matthew installed the Untangle server in transparent mode, just dropping it in behind his existing firewall. It was up and running , filtering web traffic within five minutes. Matthew praises the ease of administration of the Untangle server, and its cost: “Untangle’s subscription pricing was a fraction of the price of other vendors we considered. Given the budget pressures we’re all under these days, this decision just made great sense. We’ve just renewed for another three years”