SYSTEMS

Since the installation of its first Intrusion Prevention System, Toyota Motor Europe is reaping the benefits of securing its massive LAN/WAN with the TippingPoint Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS). TippingPoint is a division of 3Com Corporation and the leader in intrusion prevention. Using the TippingPoint solution, Toyota Motor Europe has the pervasive security it needs to safeguard its Supply Chain Management (SCM) and other critical networked business systems from Denial of Service (DOS) attacks, worms, spyware, Trojans, and viruses, plus a host of other potentially devastating attacks that could put the brakes on the automaker’s European operations. Because Toyota Motor Europe's plants operate 24/7 and request parts and materials from suppliers when needed, it must ensure that its WAN is always available. This level of security also must extend to Toyota's LAN in Brussels, where the company hosts its enterprise applications, including Oracle Financial and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. To find its IPS, Toyota Motor Europe researched a number of solutions from TippingPoint, Cisco, Symantec, McAfee, and ISS. "The TippingPoint IPS is the best security solution I have come across," said Richard Cross, Information Security Officer, Toyota Motor Europe. "Its performance has been nothing short of amazing. The solution more than paid for itself within the first year. It's simple to deploy and manage because it can interoperate with all kinds of hardware." Indeed, Toyota Motor Europe found the TippingPoint security solution so effective in blocking malicious traffic that it placed the IPS as the powerful sentinel at its Brussels headquarters' Internet gateway. Regardless of the number of filters used or the volume of traffic, packet flows move through the IPS at wirespeed. This ensures that Toyota Motor Europe's applications run optimally, while being transparently and automatically protected from threats. Cross is particularly pleased with the TippingPoint Security Management System (SMS), a hardened appliance that allows him to collect comprehensive, real-time reports and graphs on traffic statistics, blocked attacks, and information on network hosts and services. Because it can manage multiple TippingPoint devices, the SMS ensures scalability. Featuring comprehensive reporting for all security-related events, the solutions let Toyota Motor Europe monitor all events and record baselines for network performance. Moreover, it monitors the traffic from Toyota Motor Europe's branch locations. With the IPS, the Brussels office can detect the presence of threats on adjacent networks, trace them back to their IP address and eliminate the risk. "Our Brussels network supports our entire European operation," Cross added. "Network failure is not an option, and the TippingPoint IPS is a lynchpin in our security arsenal. In fact, our experience with the TippingPoint IPS has been so good we're actually rewriting our security standards to insist that all of our sites incorporate it."