The Challenge
Piloting a new technology is a smart move before rolling it out across your enterprise. A-Core Concrete Specialists agrees, especially after testing a Sophos security solution to potentially replace Symantec Endpoint Protection Cloud. A-Core’s small-scale installation of Sophos disabled the endpoints and blocked them from browsing the Internet.
During the Sophos pilot, a ransomware attack hit A-Core and bypassed a few endpoints protected by Symantec. A-Core’s IT team mitigated the attack and prevented downtime or data loss, but other Symantec issues, such as a challenging interface and limited visibility of endpoints, persisted. The team evaluated security solutions from Bitdefender, Avast, and ESET. Our partner enabled Business Security Premium and Email Security were the final contenders.
Andrew Black, Ph.D., Chief Information Officer, A-Core Concrete Specialists, explains, “During our evaluation of various solutions, we were impressed with the partner’s high ratings by the industry testing organizations and how easy it was to use the platform in our tests. I’m all about streamlining, simplifying, and making things consistent across the board. So, it was a great opportunity to consolidate and manage our endpoint and email security across our physical and Azure cloud environments from one console. They provided us with multiple security layers and options built into a single solution.”
The Solution
A-Core uses Business Security Premium to deliver integrated protection, hardening, and risk- and incident-analytics across the Microsoft Windows workstations and Windows virtual servers providing access to a Microsoft Azure cloud environment. Applications running on endpoints protected by Business Security Premium include ComputerEase construction accounting, Microsoft Office 365, and several cloud-based service applications.
In addition, Email Security protects A-Core from email threats, such as malware, phishing, spam, viruses, malicious URLs, business email compromise (BEC), and CEO fraud.
Cyber Security Solution
Business Security, Email Security
Organization
A-Core
Industry
Construction
IT Environment
CenPoint, ComputerEase, CrewTracks, Manager Plus, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Office 365, Windows Remote Desktop Services
Operating Systems
Microsoft Windows
The Results
Since moving to the platform, Black reports that threat intrusions have been thwarted. He says, “We’ve seen some malware on a couple of occasions, but it blocked it from affecting any endpoints, which is great.”
Black continues, “The platform risk analytics has been valuable since it provides intelligence about our threat footprint. I see the frequency of attacks and which systems may be most vulnerable and harden certain endpoints. I like the cloud console because the interface is so clean and simple to use. With a few clicks, I pull up users or sites that have been blocked and view the threat details and risk factors.”
Email security has been another bright spot by protecting A-Core when users unknowingly click on nefarious links in phishing emails. “Anytime a user clicks on a link in an email, it scans the link to ensure it’s not virus-laden or directs users to bad sites,” explains Black. “The platform does an excellent job identifying and quarantining potentially dangerous emails. It’s easy to review quarantined emails and filter by timeframes or users.”
“Because the platform has streamlined things for us and we trust the capabilities, I have more time to work on other important projects,” adds Black. “I’ve reduced my time on security administration by at least 20 percent.”
A-Core uses an outsourced, cloud-based payment service that is compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). To ensure customers and employees do not attempt to process credit card payments via email, the platform flags any such emails and alerts the users and security team.
Black also values the close partnership: “We have really appreciated their commitment to us and our success. When we have questions or issues, the support team is responsive and knowledgeable.”
Given the successful deployment of the platform, Black is exploring additional capabilities and solutions offered by them.
“With their wide variety of solutions, we expect to expand our Bitdefender deployment over time,” Black states. “As a company, we’re committed to becoming more virtualized and mobile- and cloud-based. Their extensive product offerings that integrate with mobile, virtual, and cloud technologies will ensure security of our data and applications as we continue on this path.”
