OVERVIEW

Data is everything for this organization that collects and analyzes vast amounts of data to provide audience insights and consumer behavior data for their customers. With Trend Micro Apex One™ as a Service with XDR, their small IT team protects all the company’s data with a single, integrated solution.

CHALLENGES

Protecting data has always been a priority. The company’s two-person IT team is responsible for protecting more than 500 endpoints. With the threat landscape continuing to expand and become more sophisticated, the team realized they needed a single security solution that could provide centralized visibility and end-to-end protection.

“We needed to isolate endpoints, block threats across the environment, and provide better visibility and reporting,” says the company’s information security analyst.

Early in 2020, the company had several Microsoft Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 systems that were reaching the end of their support. The team needed to ensure that those operating systems were fully protected from malicious attacks. Then the pandemic hit, and the threat landscape experienced a significant increase in the growth of malware and ransomware threats. At the same time, the company saw a rise in internal users installing unauthorized applications, potentially exposing the company to additional security risks.

WHY TREND

The company is a longtime user of Trend Micro™ Endpoint Security and was ready to upgrade with Trend Micro to keep up with the evolving threat environment. When it came time to make the move, the team didn’t consider any solutions beyond Trend Micro.

“Trend Micro knows our business and our challenges. Their team makes us feel like a priority customer,” says their information security analyst. “For us, data is gold. We wanted to work with a vendor that is leading the research field. Trend Micro is good at discovery, and they stay up to date with the latest information. Trend Micro was also the only company we found that would protect everything, including Macs.”

The team also appreciate the consistent communication and support Trend Micro provides.

“From the beginning, we’ve had someone helping and guiding us through deployments. When our deployments are fast, we get a good return on investment. Trend Micro’s team always follows up to make sure we’re taking advantage of all the features of their products.”

SOLUTION

The company upgraded to Trend Micro Apex One as a Service with XDR and Trend Micro Apex Central™ in early 2020, adding Trend Micro Vision One™ shortly thereafter. Because the company’s IT team is small, it was important to have a centralized platform that was easy to manage and deploy.

“XDR capabilities allow me to access the feeds from one central location. I used to have to manually identify threat intelligence. Now, with Trend Micro Apex Central, everything is presented nicely on one screen. I also like the fact that I can customize my use cases based on my environment.”

The team can now share reports with senior management that convey the company’s security posture graphically.

“Trend Micro Apex One as a Service with XDR has brought me immediate value that I can share with my executives. The board and the CEO love the reports that are delivered from Trend Micro Apex Central.”

Trend Micro Apex One as a Service also keeps them secure by providing virtual patching for end-of-life operating systems until the company can upgrade those machines.

“Trend Micro takes responsibility for updating and patching in the cloud, so there is no more heavy lifting or on-premises management required on our part.”

RESULTS

Using Trend Micro Apex One as a Service with XDR and Trend Micro Apex Central makes triage and root-cause analysis faster for the organization’s IT team. The solutions’ execution profiles provide immediate visual representations of what’s happening so they can better understand and address threats.

“With XDR capabilities, the affected platform is presented on a single screen, and one click gets me to the place where I can resolve the issue.”

Meanwhile, the solutions’ machine learning capabilities help the company manage risky employee installations of unauthorized applications.

“The machine learning included in Trend Micro solutions keeps track of those instances and can be configured to block them immediately.”

Trend Micro Apex Central also helped protect employees in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic when they shifted to working remotely.

“Using Trend Micro, we can extend security to protect employees using personal laptops from home. Without Trend Micro Apex One as a Service, we would have had to modify our firewall, set up another server, or purchase new laptops for employees to ensure security. We saved a lot of time and money not having to do any of that.”

WHAT'S NEXT

As the company continues to grow, they plan to add Trend Micro Cloud One™ – Workload Security to automate troubleshooting and allow personnel to investigate security incidents more thoroughly. The company is also considering Trend Micro solutions to improve their cloud security posture in their Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure environments.