OVERVIEW

Al Ghurair Investment is one of the largest diversified family business groups in the Middle East. The company operates in six distinct industry sectors: food and resources, properties, construction, energy, mobility, and ventures. Established as a small trading business in 1960, when pearl diving and fishing were the mainstays in the country, the company has woven itself into the very fabric of the nation. Al Ghurair has fostered a proud history of innovation and entrepreneurship and continues to build upon its legacy, which is rooted in a solid commitment to facilitate meaningful and sustainable change, all guided by a single idea: ‘Enhancing Life.’

The company’s current IT environment combines solutions and services from Microsoft and AWS. Its mission is to protect Al Ghurair’s digital environment from today’s sophisticated cybersecurity threats.

CHALLENGES

Headquartered in Deira, the heart of Dubai, the Al Ghurair family name is synonymous with the development of the region, as the company’s operations span more than 20 countries across the globe through various sectors. With approximately 28,000 employees, the company manages a high number of endpoints.

As the company grew, Al Ghurair needed to mitigate cybersecurity risks that organizations of its size face within the IT infrastructure. Due to its high volume of operations, the situation demanded multi-layered cybersecurity solutions. This would enable Al Ghurair to leverage full visibility and protection of endpoints and cloud operations while safeguarding its networks from the risks of modern-day cyber threats. In addition, the company required complete visibility throughout its digital environment from a single, centralized console.

“Protecting our digital infrastructure was a key priority, especially through our accelerated digital transformation program,” says IT Security Specialist for Al Ghurair Investment, Kamran Manzoor. “We needed to shield our growth and operations, so it was crucial we selected a security vendor whom we could trust to tirelessly keep our organization safe from the modern threat landscape with cutting-edge solutions. And Trend Micro proved to be the trusted partner we were looking for."

WHY TREND

With over 3,000 end users, Al Ghurair needed to adopt security solutions that safeguarded the transformation process and bolsters its digital framework, protecting all its operations from cloud to edge. The company required a robust, automated, insightful, all-in-one cybersecurity solution that protected the brand from evolving cyber threats. This would allow Al Ghurair to keep up with its reputation and commitment to the region. This convinced the company to turn to Trend Micro because of its standout performances in cybersecurity as a Gartner Magic Quadrant™ Leader, particularly from its centralized SOC service.

Trend Micro’s ongoing relationship with Al Ghurair instilled confidence within the organization, knowing it would receive high-quality solutions and services in a structured manner. There was no second-guessing or room for doubt when adopting industry-leading solutions that were tried and tested. The company’s security teams were determined to utilize the best cyber defense tools and strategies that provided fast detection and faster responses, thus assuring that operations were always stable.

“In today’s accelerated digital era with an emphasis on cloud operations, cybersecurity will always remain a part of our growth strategy going forward,” says Group Vice President, Information Technology, with Al Ghurair Investment, Marinda Sheahan. We must secure our digital environments so that our emp loyees can fulfill their duties in the safest way possible. With Trend Micro, we are more confident than ever in protecting our IT infrastructures and are prepared for future challenges in our digital transformation journeys.”

SOLUTION

Trend Micro Vision One with Managed XDR enabled Al Ghurair to detect and respond across more security layers. This solution allowed security teams to gain total control over the digital infrastructure and detect threats with industry-leading XDR capabilities.

In addition, Al Ghurair incorporated solutions—including Trend Micro Email Security, Trend Micro Service One, and Deep Discovery Inspector—into their cybersecurity strategy. Email Security detects and blocks advanced threats, as layered protection guards against persistent and targeted attacks from ransomware and other unidentified malware with enhanced efficiency.

Adding to the technical benefits is Trend Micro’s collaborative environment, its rapid response to threats, and its’ always-prepared support team.

RESULTS

By incorporating Trend Micro security solutions, Al Ghurair is now able to stop complex attacks before they impact users. In addition, the company has improved IT security management efficiency and compliance and leverage greater visibility across the threat landscape. With an increased response time of up to 70%, XDR sensors across email, endpoints, servers, cloud workloads, and networks identify and correlate activities to produce high-confidence detection—with the power to search, investigate, analyze, and respond from a single console. This has provided a centralized view of all threats and risks for greater ease of management, leading to a simplified approach to investigations and the ability to take immediate action.

WHAT'S NEXT

Al Ghurair is looking to tackle data sharing challenges by limiting or restricting uploads to data sharing platforms. This will provide the company with brand image protection (as their brand domain has been recently spoofed for malicious purposes), cybersecurity awareness at a group level, and the ability to uncover and protect more zero-day attacks and vulnerabilities. This level of holistic security gives Al Ghurair more tools to protect their digital assets against geo-targeted phishing attacks and ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) groups, while achieving greater visibility through code deployment and DevOps.