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Muroran City Ensures File Security with OPSWAT…
Government | Customer Stories
Muroran City Ensures File Security with OPSWAT MetaDefender Core™
Scanning and Sanitizing Thousands of Files Daily to Meet Strict Government Regulations in Japan
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About Muroran City: Located in the southwestern part of Hokkaido Island in Japan, Muroran City is the manufacturing center for the country’s steel industry. The city employs over 1000 people who process a large number of files per day. A key priority for maintaining a secure network is ensuring that files transferred from external sources to the city’s internal network are malware-free.
What's the Story? Muroran City, like many municipalities, faces the challenge of protecting its critical infrastructure from cyberattacks that could disrupt key services and compromise sensitive information. In response to a 2015 data breach, Japan's MIC (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications) introduced strict cybersecurity regulations, requiring municipalities to implement a three-tier network separation, including environments for handling personal information (My Number), internet access, and the LGWAN (government-wide area network).
For the past four years, Muroran City has relied on OPSWAT's MetaDefender Core, with Deep CDR™ and MetaScan™ technologies, to aid compliance with these strict regulations, streamline file sanitization, and ensure all files are safe before entering the network.
Like many municipalities, Japan’s Muroran City prioritizes safeguarding its critical infrastructure against cyberattacks. Such attacks can have devastating consequences, including disrupting essential city services, compromising sensitive citizen data, and exposing confidential administrative information.
According to a 2024 report from Japan’s Information-Technology Promotion Agency (IPA), ransomware remains the biggest cybersecurity threat to organizations, including government agencies, for the ninth year in a row. This shows just how persistent and serious these attacks have become in the public sector.
Why Local Governments are Easy Targets
With many cyberattacks targeting business enterprises, local governments are increasingly recognizing their own vulnerabilities. According to SC Magazine, these entities face heightened risks for various reasons, including the absence of established cybersecurity programs, insufficient funding, the rapid adoption of emerging technologies, and the increasing sophistication of cyberthreats. These growing risks underscore the urgent need for local governments to strengthen their cybersecurity defenses.
A 2015 data breach at Japan's Pension Service led Muroran City to recognize these needs and prioritize meeting the strict government standards set by Japan's MIC. They started looking for a cybersecurity partner capable of addressing today’s evolving threats while offering flexible and scalable solutions to meet future security demands.
With over 1000 employees processing thousands of files per day, including Word and Excel documents, images, and PDF files, ensuring the integrity of files entering their network became a top priority.
Sho Sawada, Chief of ICT Promotion Section, Planning and Finance Department of Muroran City Hall, explained that the current guidelines require local Japanese governments to follow a three-tier network separation approach. This approach includes an environment related to handling My Number (a social security and tax number system that includes the specified personal information of residents), an environment with internet access, and an LGWAN for internal office use.
The Challenge of Maintaining Network Security
“To transfer files downloaded from the Internet to an LGWAN environment, a dedicated file transfer service is necessary due to network segmentation,” Mr. Sawada explained. “Additionally, files must be scanned and sanitized for security risks before transfer.”
Before adopting OPSWAT's technology, the file transfer process was slow, labor-intensive, and negatively impacted employee productivity. Muroran City’s IT team also faced the challenge of protecting their network against infected USB devices brought in by staff.
For Muroran City, it was crucial to implement cybersecurity solutions that could integrate seamlessly with the city’s current infrastructure while scaling to meet future demands.
Finding the Perfect Solution
For more than four years, Muroran City has relied on MetaDefender Core to address its file security challenges. It’s clear why Mr. Sawada and other Muroran City IT officials chose MetaDefender Core, with key features such as:
Comprehensive File Sanitization: Deep CDR technology supports over 175 file types, ensuring a wide range of extensions can be sanitized.
System administrators can configure OPSWAT linkage settings directly from the Soliton Systems' FileZen S GUI.
Users can also adjust sanitization rules and other settings with ease.
User-Friendly Management Console: The intuitive interface simplifies operation and management.
Fast Processing Speeds: The solution delivers rapid performance, keeping operations efficient.
Advanced Malware Detection: MetaScan technology detects up to 99.2% of malware using over 30 anti-malware engines.
Compliance Support: OPSWAT helps meet compliance standards for three-tier separation, with Deep CDR sanitizing email attachments before they enter the network to mitigate malware threats.
Budget-Friendly: MetaDefender Core met Muroran City's financial requirements.
The efficiency and time savings [using MetaDefender] in simple tasks such as file sanitization were very beneficial.
Sho Sawada
Chief of ICT Promotion Section, Planning and FinanceDepartment, Muroran City Hall
The Value and Benefits of MetaDefender Core
As a longstanding OPSWAT customer, Mr. Sawada and his team have found OPSWAT’s MetaDefender Core with its MetaScan and Deep CDR technologies indispensable.
The simplicity of FileZen S, their file transfer solution, and the speed and thoroughness of OPSWAT's file-sanitization technology have greatly reduced the overall time required for normal operations, which checked the city’s box for speed and efficiency.
Other key benefits include:
High Performance and Scalability
OPSWAT's architecture, with load-balancing capabilities, enables local governments like Muroran City to easily scale as their needs grow.
Seamless Integration
MetaDefender Core was integrated smoothly into Muroran City's workflow, with OPSWAT's support team readily available.
Ease of Use
File sanitization happens in the background, allowing uninterrupted file transfers within the environment.
Easy to Check Progress
Users can check the progress on the screen of Soliton Systems' FileZen S to see the status of sanitized files.
Processing Power
Deep CDR supports a wide range of file extensions, which was a significant benefit.
Speed
Completing the sanitization process in under two minutes, even with large files.
The benefits we feel from the long-term use of OPSWAT are the simplification of file transfers with FileZen S and the speed of OPSWAT's file sanitization process, which has greatly reduced the overall time required for normal operations.
Sho Sawada
Chief of ICT Promotion Section, Planning and FinanceDepartment, Muroran City Hall
Looking to the Future
As they look ahead, Muroran City looks forward to continuing the partnership with OPSWAT to expand the number of file types that can be sanitized and processed across the city’s networks.
Mr. Sawada explained that some images were not previously compatible with the sanitization process. But when they made requests on a case-by-case basis, OPSWAT responded in a timely manner, and the upgraded sanitization process became available in the next version.
It is essential for local governments to be prepared to defend against continued threats from nation states and cybercriminals. By proactively integrating OPSWAT technologies into their workflow, Muroran City government officials have secured their network against malware attacks stemming from file transfers. As a result, they have measurably increased the speed and efficiency of their workforce, and fulfilled their mission to “create and maintain a foundation for providing safe and secure digital and administrative services.”
We believe that OPSWAT and FileZen S are indispensable to our city in conducting administrative operations that are safe and efficient.
Sho Sawada
Chief of ICT Promotion Section, Planning and FinanceDepartment, Muroran City Hall
To see how OPSWAT technologies can help your organization, talk to our experts.
