CheckPoint Software > Case Studies > Control Southern Enhances Cybersecurity with Check Point Infinity Architecture

Control Southern Enhances Cybersecurity with Check Point Infinity Architecture

Technology Category

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Public Cloud
Networks & Connectivity - Gateways

Applicable Industries

Buildings
National Security & Defense

Use Cases

Cybersecurity
Tamper Detection

Services

Cybersecurity Services
Training

About The Customer

Control Southern has been a trusted automation partner for process industries in the Southeastern United States for over 50 years. As an Emerson Impact Partner, it provides local access to global Emerson engineering services and expertise. Industrial customers across various market segments rely on Control Southern's automation, engineering, monitoring, valve and instrumentation, and training services to maximize production performance and efficiency. The company recently moved to Office 365 and was facing a surge in phishing attacks on its endpoints.

The Challenge

Control Southern, a trusted automation partner for process industries in the Southeastern United States, was facing a growing number of multi-vector cyber attacks targeting its network and endpoints. The company's existing firewalls were reaching end of life and the existing Sophos platform was unable to handle the increasing threats of malware, phishing, and larger-scale infections. The situation worsened when Control Southern moved to Office 365 and experienced a surge in phishing attacks on its endpoints. Ransomware gained access through malware on a web browser, infecting servers and spreading to connected client computers, encrypting gigabytes of data within minutes. The company's McAfee software on endpoints was not updating systems correctly, adding the burden of manually pushing updates to endpoints almost daily.

The Solution

Control Southern evaluated several solutions including Barracuda, Check Point, Cisco, and Sophos. However, they needed next-generation protection across all attack surfaces—network, endpoints, and cloud deployments. They chose Check Point Infinity and its unifying architecture. Check Point CloudGuard SaaS was deployed, providing Threat Emulation capabilities to sandbox and analyze suspicious emails and files, and Threat Extraction to ensure that clean files are delivered to end users. Check Point Security Appliances with threat prevention and SandBlast Zero-Day Protection were deployed across its locations. The company replaced the McAfee endpoint solution with the Check Point SandBlast Agent endpoint suite for comprehensive protection against bots, exploits, ransomware, and malware. Check Point Infinity Architecture enabled all Check Point solutions to work in harmony, delivering Gen V cybersecurity defense. Check Point R80.20 Cyber Security Management provided complete visibility into their infrastructure and policies.

Operational Impact

The deployment of Check Point CloudGuard SaaS not only stopped targeted attacks but also enabled the team to see exactly what was happening so that they could take action. It found phishing emails that would have otherwise been undetected, infected files on SharePoint and OneDrive, and identified users whose email addresses had been compromised and were being spoofed. The 'anomalies' feature alerted the team to odd logins, helping them quickly identify and address breached accounts. The solution also identified instances of 'shadow IT'— applications that users had installed for sharing files. With Check Point R80.20 Cyber Security Management, Control Southern gained unprecedented control and visibility into activity and policy in a single console. The company is now planning to roll out Check Point CloudGuard Public IaaS for Azure to protect applications as they are migrated to the public cloud.

Quantitative Benefit