Security

For Those Scared of Offering Security

One company says that their integrated desktop security product eliminates all the headaches caused by off-the-shelf software products such as firewalls and anti-virus, leaving only peace of mind, increased revenues—and security.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [April 26, 2004]

If a company tells us their product is designed for ISPs, we're encouraged to learn that the CEO actually once ran an ISP. That's the case with Montreal-based Zero Knowledge Systems (ZKS), whose CEO, Hamnett Hill, founded local ISP TotalNet in 1995.

"It was a crazy time. Because Quebec [province] did not have a dominant BBS, there were about 140 local ISPs. They were small. When we merged with our closest competitor, we had 2,000 subscribers each."

The market consolidated quickly, and by the time Totalnet was sold to Bell Canada's ISP, Sympatico, in 1997, TotalNet was the third largest in Canada, with 75,000 subscribers.

ZKS was founded in 1998. Hill says the company built up a brain trust through 2001 and developed a variety of privacy-related and security-related products and services. However, when the business climate changed, the company was forced to focus. It split off and sold the privacy division, which is now known as Synomos.

ZKS provides an integrated security solution to large ISPs, carriers, and telcos. This system, which gets fully integrated into the ISP's billing and provisioning systems, is designed to deliver value-added security services without the help hassle.

We've heard a great deal about these hassles on the ISP-Lists. In How Personal Firewalls Annoy Help Desk Technicians, we found that numerous ISP customers buy firewalls, set them to maximum security, and then come to believe that their own ISP is scanning them like a hacker.

In The Anti-Virus Can Of Worms, we learned that some ISPs fear facing liability issues if they roll out anti-virus services. Other ISPs have told us that they end up giving away anti-virus service to prevent their own network from becoming polluted by users who just don't understand the risks of going unprotected.

When a new version of Symantec or Zone Alarm software is released, members of the ISP-Tech list exchange advice about any bugs or conflicts the software might cause, worried about a large volume of help desk calls.

But however big the headaches associated with this software, these are services that most companies want to offer. Some are willing to offer it for free, while others hope to profit from it. Whatever they do, ISPs want to make it easy for the end user—and also make it easy for themselves.

ZKS' integrated, all-in-one service, called Synbridge, provides anti-virus, firewall, parental controls, anti-spyware, and basic privacy protection (such as cookie management). That's pretty much everything you'd want except anti-spam (and any anti-spam product an ISP deploys is often server-side rather than client-side).

The company even works with whoever is making the CD you send out to new users. It ensures that the ZKS package is installed but not turned on when the new customer first loads their dialer. That means it can be easily provisioned when the subscriber pays for it.

In addition, the package only works as long as the user is an authenticated subscriber. If they leave, they lose software functionality. This may not be the case when an ISP resells or, worse, gives away off-the-shelf software. Some ISPs that gave away software with the first month of service found users were canceling, and walking away with software they'd been given for free.

Hill says that the integrated package reduces churn and increases Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), a key industry measure of profitability. One ISP, Hill says, saw a 40 percent take rate of their C$6 per user per month service, resulting in an improvement in ARPU of six to eight percent.

Another ISP reported that users who bought the service were 30 percent less likely to leave.

Hill is most enthusiastic about the power of the software in a crisis. He compares two ISPs' experiences with the blaster worm. The ISP that bought Synbridge after the blaster flood found that one in eight users called the help desk during the period of infection, resulting in costs of €3 to 4 million (at about €15 per call).

The ISP that already was using Synbridge, on the other hand, delivered a popup message to all subscribers saying that they were protected from blaster. Users that had not subscribed to the service were told they'd have it free for a week. Those who did call got a free computer cleanup, courtesy of the help desk agent, and were sold a service, making the help desk a profit center.

"Less tech savvy users think the Internet is their provider," notes Hill. That means that an ISP that can provide a better experience is seen as providing a "better Internet" by customers who may not understand the software that's making the experience better.

The Synbridge product does incorporate some software from other companies. It uses F-Prot for anti-virus (much loved on the ISP-Lists as being lightweight and effective), and uses NetSweeper for parental controls.

Pricing and availability
Synbridge is available now. Pricing was not disclosed at press time, but varies with each deployment.

— End