How A1QA prevented system breach and data loss during peak

The Customer

The Customer is the world’s leading catering and entertainment non-profit company. Founder and CEO is a prominent figure in North American culture who reflects an amalgamation of the Dutch Sinterklaas, and Christmas gift-bringers in other traditions. He expressed well-grounded fears about the reliability of security software during the high season of December 2011- January 2012.

The Project Scope

A1QA experts were invited to conduct functional, performance, and security testing of the security system (anti-virus, anti-hacker, anti-spam) under high loads of the peak season. The objectives were:

• to ensure network intrusion security;
• to prevent private data loss and leakage;
• to provide comprehensive firewall and protection from malicious software;
• to verify files, email messages and internet traffic;
• to block links to phishing sites.

The project team was experienced in network technologies, various security solutions and performance optimization.

• Testing scenarios used in functional testing covered those properties that emulated the most common cases of application usage.
• Security tests checked the application’s reliability while processing huge amounts of data and high traffic.
• For performance tests the team developed a custom testing approach that allowed identifying bottlenecks in performance and possible breakdowns they could cause that affect the network’s security.

The Result

All aspects of the security system’s functionality were covered by tests. The team uncovered and reported a number of severe defects that were previously overlooked. A1QA updated the configuration and issued recommendations on performance optimization of the security system to meet the challenges of the peak season emulated during the project activities.