Avanan > Case Studies > City and County of San Francisco

City and County of San Francisco

Customer Company Size

Large Corporate

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

Avanan

Tech Stack

Cloud-based email
Machine learning algorithm

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Technology Category

Cybersecurity & Privacy - Cloud Security

Applicable Industries

Cities & Municipalities

Applicable Functions

Business Operation

Use Cases

Cybersecurity

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
Cybersecurity Services

About The Customer

Michael Makstman is the Chief Information Security Officer for the City and County of San Francisco. It is a unique position, one that involves the security, privacy and resiliency of 50 separate public agencies that provide critical services to San Franciscans, including public safety, healthcare, transportation, and many others. Makstman came to San Francisco from Kaiser Permanente, where he was Senior Director of Technology Risk Management. Before that, he spent close to a decade at Deloitte Security Services. Though he has spent most of his career in the private sector, what attracted him to the San Francisco CISO role was the sense of mission.

The Challenge

The City Cybersecurity team within the Department of Technology must provide protection for 50 City and County departments subject to widely varying risks and requirements. For example, the Department of Elections must be protected from state-sponsored cyber attacks while also being transparent to public oversight. Health Care and Human Services, Finance and the Courts all fall under multiple regulatory requirements, from HIPAA to PCI to California State and Federal regulations. Needs vary widely. Some organizations have over 10,000 staff members with their own IT staff. Others may only have 50, with elected leaders that change every election cycle. Makstman partners with all to protect their data and services. Whether safeguarding water, power and transportation systems, or supporting health and human services for vulnerable populations, Makstman is tasked with protecting critical municipal services for the one million people who work and live in San Francisco.

The Solution

The City started its move to the cloud before his tenure, with most departments already using cloud-based email when he joined. To protect them, Makstman sought a strong security solution that was cloud-native. City business requirements needed a flexible platform, one that could support multiple cloud email and collaboration tools and one that provided robust analytics. The Department of Public Health (DPH), a City Center of Excellence, deployed Avanan on their own initiative for their email security. DPH's very positive experience gave Makstman and his team the chance to evaluate Avanan in a real-world environment. After a thorough analysis of other leading email security vendors, he recommended the City adopt Avanan as the standard across all departments. Beyond the cloud-capabilities, Makstman wanted to be able to think long-term, to connect with a partner that could work with the City and adapt to a variety of challenges that might be unique to each department.

Operational Impact

The most important reason for standardizing on Avanan was the ability to detect and block new attacks.
Being able to see the organization from both a granular and 30,000-foot view is essential. The more data that's generated, the better that Avanan's machine learning algorithm can take and learn from it.
With employees working from home, email attacks are increasing but collaboration apps and file sharing services are also becoming a target. The entire suite needs security.
It's that flexibility and precision that has helped San Francisco in the transition to the work-from-home era and allowed them to feel confident that employees connecting to their email from home remain protected.

Quantitative Benefit