For Addison Avenue Federal Credit Union, a full-service financial institution with more than 140,000 members nationwide, finding a balance between safeguarding confidential member information while allowing employees to use the Internet to its fullest potential is essential to business. Recognizing the growing business value of Web 2.0 applications including blogs and social networking sites, Addison Avenue turned to Websense, Inc. (NASDAQ: WBSN) for an integrated solution for real-time Web 2.0 security and data loss prevention.

“We were initially searching for a data loss prevention solution to help us protect confidential member data and prevent it from leaking outside the organization,” said Henry Parker, senior security architect at Addison Avenue. “Once we saw that Websense could also make our Web environment more secure and enable our employees to use Web 2.0 applications safely, we jumped at the opportunity to deploy both Websense Web Security Gateway and Websense Data Security Suite as an integrated, easy-to-manage solution from a single vendor.”

Organizations are increasingly seeing business value in enabling access to Web 2.0 applications. According to a recent study of IT decision makers across government and corporate sectors(1), 53 percent of respondents believe that Web 2.0 applications will substantially improve employee performance in the next five years. Yet, more than half of IT decision makers may be hesitant to adopt such applications because of concerns about proper usage and security. The Websense Web Security Gateway allows organizations to embrace Web 2.0 tools without fear of security risks.

Parker added, “We’re seeing a growing number of business use cases for Web 2.0 at Addison Avenue. Our collections department often accesses social networking sites for research to locate assets that need to be collected, like vehicles. Our marketing department can use social networking sites to reach out to members and potential members to offer quality financial services. We also use a corporate blog to communicate with members. Prior to deploying Websense, employees had limited access to Web 2.0 applications and social networking sites because we could not risk the potential threats that they bring — even though a good portion of the content on those sites is safe. Now, with the real-time scanning provided by the Websense Web Security Gateway, we open up access to these sites while ensuring that malicious content cannot get in, and that our confidential data does not go out.”

Addison Avenue uses Websense Data Security Suite to monitor sensitive data and alert management if information is being sent somewhere that it should not go. The data loss prevention solution creates a digital fingerprint for each piece of sensitive information and monitors who is using it, how they are using it and where they are attempting to send it. By integrating the Websense Data Security Suite with the Websense Web Security Gateway, Addison Avenue has a single, multi-function gateway to control Web and data security with SSL decryption functionality, granular geographic location visibility and real-time user identification. Integrated management and policy enforcement make the solution easy to use and provide a lower total cost of ownership.

“Many of our customers want to open up the Web for employees for business use without putting the company at risk,” said Leo Cole, vice president of marketing at Websense. “By using the Websense Web Security Gateway with Websense Data Security Suite, Addison Avenue Federal Credit Union is able to let its employees use Web 2.0 without worrying about data loss or malicious content.”

All Websense solutions, including Websense Web Security Gateway and Websense Data Security Suite, are powered by the Websense ThreatSeeker(TM) Network which continuously monitors the Internet for changes and emerging threats. The resulting intelligence is immediately incorporated into the company’s Web, data and email security solutions. As a result, Websense solutions adapt to the rapidly changing Internet threat environment at speeds not possible by traditional security solutions.

Addison Avenue Says “Yes!” to Web 2.0 While Protecting Essential Information With Websense