Security reseller Total Network Solutions (TNS) has won a contract with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) to install firewalls, after viruses hit one of the department's offices.

Last year, the Nottingham office of the government department was struck by the Blaster and Netsky worms.

The effort involved in clearing up the viruses persuaded the ODPM's Regional Co-ordination Unit (RCO) to increase its protection.

TNS initially won a contract to install a Fortinet firewall in the Nottingham office, but the ODPM has now rolled out protection to all of its 15 regional offices.

"This was our first major installation of Fortinet," explained Gary Murphy, public sector sales manager at TNS. "We'd only just decided to go with them."

TNS now provides a managed service for the ODPM, ensuring that the department's firewall is updated against the latest threats.

"There's just so much patching work to do that system administrators are hard pressed to find the time. Our approach means that we can manage the system on behalf of our customers and ensure they fully protected," said Murphy.

The attack last autumn proved to be a wake-up call for the ODPM, said Chris Benefield, the RCO's senior ICT project manager.

"We're a Novell-GroupWise house and had never really been troubled by virus attacks. But managing the security across the 15 sites can be like herding cats. I've now got TNS managing it on my behalf," he said.