The Challenge
Macmillan Cancer Support’s deployment of Bitdefender GravityZone arrived in the nick of time. Macmillan, which provides millions of people diagnosed with cancer and their loved ones with emotional and financial support, was struggling with ransomware outbreaks when it used Trend Micro security software. In addition, Trend Micro was time-consuming to use and slowed down performance of desktops and servers, burdening Macmillan’s small security team. The firm evaluated alternative security solutions from Bitdefender, CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Sophos, and Trend Micro and selected our partner enabled Bitdefender GravityZone.
Tim O’Neill, Head of Information Security, Macmillan Cancer Support, explains, “When we ran a proof of concept of the solutions under consideration, we were impressed with Bitdefender’s vulnerability scanning, detection speed, ease of reporting, and centralized view of the entire infrastructure. When the pandemic arrived, we were relieved that we had Bitdefender GravityZone in place. We moved more than 2,000 employees and 7,000 volunteers to remote work with confidence that personal client data and resources would not be compromised.”
The Solution
Macmillan depends on Bitdefender GravityZone Business Security Enterprise to provide integrated endpoint protection, detection, response and risk analytics across more than 3,350 endpoints, including Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS workstations, and Microsoft Windows, VMware ESXi, and VMware vSphere physical and virtual servers, as well as VMware Horizon virtual desktops. Bitdefender also protects Microsoft Azure running in Macmillan’s hybrid cloud.
In addition, Macmillan uses GravityZone’s Sandbox Analyzer to analyze suspicious files, detonate payloads, and report malicious intent and HyperDetect for its tunable machine learning, advanced heuristics, and anti-exploit techniques.
Macmillan’s application environments protected by GravityZone include Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange mailboxes, Microsoft SQL Server databases, and Apache web servers.
“It was a massive win that we installed Bitdefender GravityZone and migrated over 3,000 endpoints in only three weeks,” recalls O’Neill. “Bitdefender was so simple to deploy and configure. It took a fraction of the time compared to our previous migrations to new security solutions.”
Cyber Security Solution
Integrated Endpoint Protection, Detection Response and Risk Analytics
Organization
MacMillan Cancer Support
Industry
Healthcare
IT Environment
Apache, Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, VMware ESXi, VMware Horizon, VMware vSphere
Operating Systems
Apple macOS, Microsoft Windows
The Results
With a three-person security team, O’Neill values Bitdefender’s efficiency. He says, “The GravityZone interface makes it incredibly easy to analyze security incidents. Trend Micro required us to hop on different dashboards to execute a single process. Our team needed little training to get up to speed on GravityZone.”
Bitdefender proved its mettle when it alerted Macmillan to an infection linked to a compromised email account. The security team used Sandbox Analyzer to isolate and clean the infection. Previously, the security team was investigating two to three incidents a month. With Bitdefender, the team only investigates incidents every couple of months on average and has not encountered any security breaches.
O’Neill reports, “We spend 70 percent less time on incident response, which gives us more time for other strategic and complex projects, such as network- and micro-segmentation. Even with the pandemic, the security team is less stressed, and they consistently meet project deadlines. They have more confidence in the infrastructure and are no longer constantly chasing down security issues.”
“The GravityZone endpoint analytics dashboard shows our current risk score and includes buttons to fix the risks one by one or across the board,” continues O’Neill. “The powerful GravityZone EDR capabilities provide comprehensive protection across our physical, virtual, cloud, and on-premises environments.”
Moving to Bitdefender also has decreased the number of security-related trouble inquiries from users by 80 percent. Not only do updates run more smoothly, but endpoint performance issues have completely disappeared. Further, Bitdefender has contributed to lower operational costs.
“We no longer need to hire consultants to reconfigure our security solution to support a new application, such as a web portal,” O’Neill states. “Bitdefender is intuitive and easy to operate so we can make those changes internally. That has helped reduce our third-party security contractor costs by 85 percent. With Bitdefender, we’ve lowered our costs while getting peace of mind that we’re able to reliably deliver vital support services and resources to our clients.”
Bitdefender proved its mettle when it alerted Macmillan to an infection linked to a compromised email account. The security team used Sandbox Analyzer to isolate and clean the infection. Previously, the security team was investigating two to three incidents a month. With Bitdefender, the team only investigates incidents every couple of months on average and has not encountered any security breaches.
O’Neill reports, “We spend 70 percent less time on incident response, which gives us more time for other strategic and complex projects, such as network- and micro-segmentation. Even with the pandemic, the security team is less stressed, and they consistently meet project deadlines. They have more confidence in the infrastructure and are no longer constantly chasing down security issues.”
“The GravityZone endpoint analytics dashboard shows our current risk score and includes buttons to fix the risks one by one or across the board,” continues O’Neill. “The powerful GravityZone EDR capabilities provide comprehensive protection across our physical, virtual, cloud, and on-premises environments.”
Moving to Bitdefender also has decreased the number of security-related trouble inquiries from users by 80 percent. Not only do updates run more smoothly, but endpoint performance issues have completely disappeared. Further, Bitdefender has contributed to lower operational costs.
“We no longer need to hire consultants to reconfigure our security solution to support a new application, such as a web portal,” O’Neill states. “Bitdefender is intuitive and easy to operate so we can make those changes internally. That has helped reduce our third-party security contractor costs by 85 percent. With Bitdefender, we’ve lowered our costs while getting peace of mind that we’re able to reliably deliver vital support services and resources to our clients.”