Vic Police puts cuffs on spam
Victoria's state police force has flagged plans to implement managed e-mail and Web filtering services to tackle the increasing threat of Internet nasties.
"Victoria Police has experienced growth in volume and sophistication of spam and other malicious e-mail threats, and requires a managed e-mail filtering solution to mitigate this risk," the organisation wrote in tender documents released this week. The force also requires "a solution for controlling, filtering, monitoring and reporting on its employees' Internet Web traffic".
Some 16,000 employees have access to external e-mail and the Internet through Victoria Police's internal network. And utilisation of those resources is high, according to the tender documents, with some 1.3 terabytes of inbound and outbound external e-mail, and 1.2 terabytes of Web traffic being processed in the three months to 31 December last year.
Victoria Police currently has a 10Mbps Internet connection to shift that data, however, a new 100Mbps pipe is expected to be put in place in future.
The documents noted Victoria Police was seeking to improve network performance through implementation of the e-mail filter, by reducing e-mail traffic between its Internet service provider, its network servers and desktop PCs. The force stated any e-mail filtering solution must be compatible with both Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes collaboration platforms.
Victoria Police also specified that any e-mail filtering solution must detect and block 100 percent of known spam, viral, phishing and other malicious e-mails, while only accidentally blocking less than or equal to one percent of legitimate business communication.
The Web filtering solution, in turn, must monitor all Internet use by Victoria Police employees, and block access to malicious sites or Web pages prohibited under the group's Internet use policy. Viruses transmitted by the HTTP and FTP protocols must also be blocked.
The solution must integrate with Microsoft's Active Directory ID management framework so that users can be authenticated for access and matched to their usage.
Both filtering systems are slated to be introduced by 30 June this year. Victoria Police is also currently tendering for maintenance services related to its PABX-based telephony network.
Victoria Police's IT operation is overseen by its chief information officer Valda Berzins.