Standardising a global portfolio onto one best-in-class cybersecurity platform
With acquisitions a key part of the organisation’s growth strategy, the central cybersecurity team needed a unified, scalable, policy-driven solution to deliver visibility and consistency.
It required:
- A bold, one-year transformation programme to consolidate its global portfolio of 20 growing businesses onto one best-in-class cybersecurity platform model.
- A cloud-first approach that would support the organisation’s acquisitive strategy and reduce risk.
- Simplified, modernised security operations to drive enterprise thinking and help its small security team improve the speed and efficiency of threat management.–
“The Palo Alto Networks platform is a force multiplier for us. By converging our portfolio on one common cybersecurity platform, we are reducing risk, increasing operational efficiency, and supporting growth."
Group Chief Security Officer, Global civil infrastructure and engineered product group
Journey to platformization
Network transformation and protection
Hardware Firewall
Prisma Access and ADEM
Endpoint security
Cortex XDR
Cloud environment management
Strata Cloud Manager
Threat intel and incident response
Unit 42 Proactive Services
Unit 42 Incident Response
Unit 42 Retainer
One standard security platform template for global operations
The global civil infrastructure and engineered product organisation standardised its portfolio of 20 businesses using the Palo Alto Networks platform approach. Each business conforms with the organisation’s Group IT Control Manual security template and the security team is now working towards formal certification of its security posture.
Simple and streamlined security
The organisation globally deployed Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs). The organisation’s Group Chief Security Officer explains, “The firewalls act as a ‘Swiss Army Knife’ to define segmentation and safeguard the operational technology and other technologies.”
All subsidiaries are significantly easier to manage with Prisma Access, which provides least-privileged access and continuous security inspection to protect more than 2,000 staff and their devices. Autonomous Digital Experience Management (ADEM) monitors performance of users, branch sites, applications, and IT infrastructure across the service delivery path, enabling fast remediation that helps the operations teams reduce escalations.
Both the NGFWs and Prisma Access include AI-powered inline threat prevention with best-in-class protection from the tightly integrated Cloud-Delivered Security Services (CDSS) capabilities.
Driving endpoint protection
Where the organisation previously lacked visibility over local security systems, system implementation, and the tools in place, Cortex XDR now provides complete control and oversight of more than 2,000 endpoints with superior threat prevention. XDR’s analytics engine leverages telemetry collected across the manufacturer’s deployment to empower more than 1,200 out-of-the-box, ML-powered atomic use cases to supercharge threat detection.
Complete visibility and security analytics ensure that threats are investigated and triaged faster and more efficiently, resulting in improved SOC performance. The organisation has since significantly reduced Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR).
Reducing risk with global cloud management
The global civil infrastructure and engineered product organisation selected Strata Cloud Manager (SCM) to reduce complexity and risk through a single interface across both the NGFWs and Prisma Access deployments. SCM provides unified visibility into all assets, users, applications, and devices, ensuring concise cloud management of the environment with Zero Trust integration. The organisation was able to strengthen its security posture in real time and use the best practice recommendations, enabling evidence-based decision-making and improved protection.
24/7 access to incident response experts
The security team is supported by Unit 42 Incident Response experts, who created an incident response plan and are conducting Tabletop Exercises to identify and close gaps in detection and response processes. These Unit 42 Proactive Services help the security team put threats into context and ensure that any incidents are being managed effectively and immediately. The Unit 42 Retainer gives the team 24/7 access to incident response experts in case an incident should occur, and can be used for additional proactive
services.
Driving enterprise thinking
With a platform approach in place, the global manufacturer has risk-based controls to effectively protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of its data and information. The Group Chief Security Officer explains, “This consolidated, simple cybersecurity model irons out all the complexity we previously had across the portfolio. Despite an accelerating pace of change, we now have the technology, processes, and people to protect our digital future.”
The newly modernised security infrastructure is now contributing to sales and business growth, and the organisation regularly references this cybersecurity strategy as a competitive differentiator.
Risk, Resilience and Real Talk with Sam Ainscow
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