Elitecore Tech eyes American schools

Ahmedabad-based Elitecore Technologies, maker of identity-based Unified Threat Management (UTM solution) applications under the name of Cyberoam, has charted out a plan to target educational institutes in the US taking advantage of a federal law on filtered education content.

Cyberoam has caught on with educational institutes in the US owing to a federal law called the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under the name 'Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) wherein every school and educational institute has to make sure no offensive content is accessible over the internet on school and library computers.

The solution, which contains mechanism to block unfiltered content also monitors usage from chat rooms, instant messaging, e-mail, e-mail attachments, Word, PowerPoint, and all other Windows applications.

The law also has a clause wherein it will facilitate funding of internet and technology connections under its E-Rate programme only to those schools and libraries which are compliant with CIPA norms, which is working in the favour of UTM solution providers.

"No educational institute or library would prefer to have unfiltered content in its database, nor would it want to let go of the E-Rate fund, which automatically makes them look towards UTM solutions which is not only a firewall against viruses but also ensures favourable content, " said Greg Greg Caravello, vice-president (sales), Cyberoam.

The company is also eyeing the SME segment in the US. "Security breaches are a serious problem in the US and need the combination of various products to counter it which is usually not affordable to the SME segment. In order to cater to this segment we have introduced counters to Internet threats including spyware, phishing, pharming, viruses, worms among others," said Caravello.

Back home, the company is targeting BPOs and banks following recent security breaches. The company has brought out a new version of Cyberoam, which addresses security concerns related to device failures along with additional features like Dynamic DNS, said Hemal Patel, managing director and CEO, Elitecore Technologies, adding that next on the company's radar was entering the education and SME markets in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam.