Scanning for viruses

My first job position after college was with a company that needed someone to do some IT work. I was hired to design and implement a firewall as well as a virus scanning mail solution. We wanted all mail sent in and out of the company to be scanned. The challenge for me was not only lack of experience but gaining the trust of management. SANS was my guide throughout this project. My goal was to do a risk evaluation taking into account business need then implementing the solution. Throughout the course of the project I learned the value of several security tools. I will step through the process I went through that increased security at this company. Part of the process included: interviews with employees, firewall selection through business need, firewall setup based on security and business requirements, implementing an IDS, and setting up a mail hub that would scan incoming and outgoing mail for viruses. Even after meeting the requirements of this security project, security was not guaranteed. This was my first project and some mistakes were made. I will address the mistakes and how they can be fixed. Given the limitations of the project and the learning curve the security of the network was increased.