€1.5 million per day. That’s the amount this German food wholesaler has calculated a data outage could cost. Fruit and vegetables would quickly perish in the warehouse as the supply chain ground to a halt. Frustrated customers would quickly turn to competitors for service. Revenue would dry up.
So it’s no surprise that cybersecurity is key to the company’s operating model. Everything is focused on deterring threat actors; maintaining a continuous supply chain; and creating an agile, productive environment for the 650 staff. Prior to its partnership with Palo Alto Networks, the food wholesaler was relying on a loose assortment of network and endpoint security tools. According to the company’s CISO, this absorbed scarce security resources and created complexity and unseen security gaps.
“The patchwork of firewalls and endpoint security devices demanded day-to-day manual intervention. It was also difficult to share intelligence between the solutions.”
CISO
German food wholesaler
The food wholesaler has deployed a single connected network and endpoint security platform to create complete, unified visibility of its infrastructure and environment. “With eyes on all data, applications, and users, there’s nowhere left for threat actors to hide,” the CIO comments. The company was among the first in Germany to partner with Palo Alto Networks, initially deploying ML-Powered Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) to shield its network from malicious and unnecessary network traffic.
Endpoint security was next up for transformation. The seamless stitching of the Layer 7 network data from the ML-Powered NGFWs together with the threat data, endpoint data, andanalytics from Cortex XDR provides all the information needed for the SOC analyst to investigate issues more easily.
And the platformization journey continues: the team is currently testing Prisma SD-WAN and Cortex XSOAR in the lab. Prisma SD-WAN will support flexible connectivity with zero routing complexity to multiple different locations across Germany on a new customer hub application. Cortex XSOAR will alleviate the burden on the four-person IT team, automating incident response workflows.
The team currently shares responsibility for monitoring security operations, and XSOAR will free up a significant amount of their time.
Reduces operational risk
One proven platform, one tool set, and one methodology make it easier to deliver trusted security. The company has not experienced a single cyberattack-related outage in eight years. “A one-day outage would cost our business approximately €1.5 million. The resilient Palo Alto Networks platform defends against that event,” the CIO explains.Moves business closer to Zero Trust strategy
The integrated platform approach to security accelerates the move to a framework that requires users to be authenticated and continuously validated before being granted access to applications. With this integrated approach – rather than a patchwork of disparate solutions – Zero Trust is now much easier to achieve.Transforms security posture
Enhances security capabilities, including centralised management, targeted security responses, and robust threat detection and prevention, resulting in faster identification and resolution of security events.Delivers significant operational efficiency
Complete security visibility, automation, and standardisation streamline monitoring and management. The entire infrastructure is managed by just four people.Reduces cyber insurance cost
The organisation’s insurance fee is renewed each year at the same premium. “Our auditors are very impressed by the breadth and depth of our cybersecurity strategy,” says the CISO.
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