Case Study: Ministry of the Interior achieves stronger web security and performance with Citrix NetScaler SDX

Government agency uses Citrix NetScaler SDX for greater security and performance

The Ministry of the Interior in Rome, which supports about 23,000 employees and provides public web portals used by tens of thousands of citizens, needed to protect its high‑profile online services from attacks—especially denial‑of‑service incidents that could disrupt information flow during elections—and to secure new services such as an online payment system. Aging load‑balancing equipment and complex application threats prompted the IT team to add a stronger, application‑level defense.

The ministry replaced its legacy gear with Citrix NetScaler SDX (a combined web application firewall and application delivery controller) following a proof‑of‑concept that detected a real attack even with the IPS disabled. Deployed with Citrix Consulting, NetScaler SDX now secures more than 25 applications and databases, supports thousands of connections per second, simplified management, enabled rollout of new services (including an online entry‑exam and future payment system), and reduced hardware costs by about €30,000 annually.

Ministry of the Interior

Stefano Plantemoli

IT Network and Security Manager