How Tinton Falls keeps firehouses safe from ransomware with Cloudflare Gateway

The firehouse serves as a second home for many firefighters; one where they spend hours working, socializing, exercising, and studying. Naturally, it’s important that they have the resources they need to dispatch people to the right places — one of which is reliable access to the Internet.

But securing a computer like this in a shared environment has challenges: how do you give these administrators and volunteers access to the web, without risking the threats of malware that might arise when they click the wrong link? It’s an issue that Andrew Calvo, Fire Commissioner of Tinton Falls Fire District #1, was all too familiar with.


“As the former Acting IT Director for a large public safety agency, I had broad view of the kinds of attacks directed at Public Safety agencies and their infrastructure. Things like ransomware can be a huge burden for these organizations, so we’re being proactive about making sure those attacks can’t reach our computers.”
- Andrew Calvo
Fire Commissioner of Tinton Falls Fire District #1

That’s why he turned to Cloudflare Gateway. Gateway resolves and filters DNS requests at the network level, providing enterprise-grade security protection that is more flexible and affordable than the legacy firewall appliances that have long been applied for similar tasks.

The fire district was able to quickly configure two firehouses to route their traffic through Gateway, with policies maintained and enforced via Cloudflare’s dashboard. In addition to custom block lists Cloudflare Gateway provides automatic, best-in-class protection against malware and phishing attacks.

To do this, Gateway integrates the collective intelligence derived from over 26 million Internet properties on Cloudflare’s network. As soon as an attack is detected against any one of these customers, Cloudflare’s network deploys countermeasures to protect every customer — including the firehouses.

This is just the beginning of the department’s journey with Gateway. With time, Andrew plans to extend Gateway’s protection to the mobile devices installed in the department’s fire trucks.


“Cloudflare Gateway is able to cut off these malware threats at the network level, allowing us to deploy policies quickly across multiple machines and our fire stations in town. And because of the breadth and intelligence of Cloudflare’s network, we’re automatically protected against the latest threats.”
- Andrew Calvo
Fire Commissioner of Tinton Falls Fire District #1

How Tinton Falls keeps firehouses safe from ransomware with Cloudflare Gateway
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Key Results

• Gateway blocked 1,000 malicious requests in the first 30 days of deployment.

• The Gateway solution was 60% less expensive than a competitive solution from Cisco.

• Andrew was able to configure and deploy Gateway across multiple locations in a matter of minutes.

Cloudflare Gateway is able to cut off these malware threats at the network level, allowing us to deploy policies quickly across multiple machines and our fire stations in town. And because of the breadth and intelligence of Cloudflare’s network, we’re automatically protected against the latest threats.

Andrew Calvo
Fire Commissioner of Tinton Falls Fire District #1