Stevens Aviation, a premier US aviation services company, faced significant cybersecurity challenges. Their mission-critical systems required robust protection from cybercriminals, but their small IT staff lacked the resources to focus on cybersecurity. Additionally, they needed an affordable solution to secure hundreds of workers across multiple locations. The evolving nature of cyber attacks, where hackers remain hidden within networks to steal assets or cause damage over time, made it clear that detection was just as important as prevention. Detecting breaches that bypass perimeter defense systems required diligent forensic analysis, which was a tedious and daily task.

Threshold, a leading distributor of nutritional supplements, recognized the need to enhance its cybersecurity measures to protect its expanding multi-national business. The company was aware of the increasing threat of cybercrime, especially for smaller firms with limited IT resources and security expertise. They understood that a data breach could be devastating, as seen in high-profile cases like Sony and Target. Despite their commitment to improving cybersecurity, Threshold faced significant challenges due to their limited budget and lack of in-house security experts. They needed a comprehensive solution that could provide robust security without the high costs associated with hiring full-time security personnel.

Advance Financial faced significant challenges in managing its cybersecurity infrastructure. The company lacked centralized visibility into security alerts from multiple point security products, including antivirus on desktops, perimeter firewalls, and cloud access service brokers. With over 400 million security alerts per month, the limited IT team struggled to triage and prioritize these alerts, leading to missed security threats. Additionally, the team spent considerable time generating customized reports to meet financial regulations such as PCI-DSS and GLBA. Building an internal security operations center (SOC) was considered but found to be more than three times the cost of adopting a SOC-as-a-service solution.

The challenge facing the infosec team was that, like many security professionals, the volume of alerts generated by their current devices was not only overwhelming, but almost guaranteed that something malicious would slip through unnoticed. The impact to the team was that they were spending the majority of their time analyzing alerts rather than remediating threats in their system and thus were forced into being reactive to attacks once they were well underway. They recognized that they needed an accurate and efficient solution to detect attacks from all vectors and the ability to cut through the noise and generate only high-integrity alerts with zero false positives.

The healthcare company faced a significant challenge when it discovered that its existing security controls were bypassed by malware spreading from newly deployed IoT medical devices. These devices, intended for patient monitoring, were observed dropping malware on decoy systems set up by the company. The primary concern was the potential for this malware to spread to other critical systems within the healthcare network, posing a risk to patient data and overall network integrity. The company needed a robust solution to detect and mitigate such threats promptly to ensure the safety and security of its operations.

The hospital’s existing security controls did not provide enough actionable intelligence or alerts to mitigate current and future attacks. The security team learned of attacks from end users or by seeing ransomware encrypting critical data on their network shares. Responding to this particular attack was very resource intensive as the team was forced to manually quarantine and remediate the individual endpoints and then check the local network shares for encrypted files. The team did not obtain the attack forensic information they needed to quickly analyze the malware and deal with its polymorphic nature. The security team found manual remediation extremely problematic because it required significant time to gather attack information and respond to the infected systems. The incident response approach was resource intensive and reactive, as opposed to a proactive response to an attack. The security team lacked confidence that when they mitigated an attack, it would not reoccur – they did not know if they had truly stopped it.

The infosec team saw the ever-changing landscape of threats as the biggest challenge that faced their organization. The threats were everywhere. And with a gap in their ability to detect new strains of attacks, the organization needed a device that was able to catch zero-day and signatureless threats. Additionally, the team found devices that generated a lot of alarms and whistles to be very distracting because of the rate of false positives that were produced – so much so that they were determined to find a solution that generated zero false positives. They didn’t need more alerts, they needed quality alerts.

The acquired organization had basic security but little visibility into any threats that have made their way inside the network. Because of the lack of visibility, the infosec teams lacked confidence that these networks weren’t already compromised in some way. A compromised affiliate network posed a risk to not only that subsidiary, but to the broader enterprise as well. Any in-network malware could potentially spread to the larger organization, and create significant risk to customer confidence, revenue, and their brand reputation. The team needed a reliable way to know if the network was compromised, as well as visibility into the acquired organization’s overall health and risk associated with its end-points. Beyond gaining this initial visibility, they needed a reliable way to detect any new threats inside the network that could occur in the future.

AC Transit faced significant challenges in updating software across its expansive network, particularly with legacy applications. The organization also dealt with interdivisional silos, which created inefficiencies and inconsistencies in system patching. The onset of remote work in 2020 further highlighted the need for a more effective and centralized patching solution. AC Transit needed a way to ensure that all systems were patched correctly and that their patching efforts were effective, especially given the diverse geographical locations of their divisions and departments.

Our current infrastructure is predominantly Windows and Linux servers (both physical and virtual), laptops and workstations, with an overall endpoint count around 260. We were using WSUS but became frustrated with the complexity, unreliability, and the lack of confidence that our endpoints were being patched and protected. We were looking for a solution that was easier, gave us the ability to remediate vulnerabilities for remote devices, and allowed us more control and flexibility over custom software policies. Our patching process included regular endpoint updates where we’d gather in a conference room, open up WSUS, reject updates that might disrupt workflow or coding, and push the remaining ones through. Because the update process was so manual, we did endpoint updates on a weekly or quarterly basis. This meant we were pushing hundreds of updates and the volume was too much for our patching solution to handle.

When Catherine Cahill started as Director of Technology and Innovation at Lyncourt School District, she entered an IT environment with little to no data around its existing systems. In a district considered data-rich but resource-poor, Cahill knew she needed to prioritize projects to secure and enhance the IT and learning environment at Lyncourt School District. The first thing on her to-do list was securing her IT environment and remediating vulnerabilities. Before finding Automox, Lyncourt School District was struggling with visibility into their environments. When it came to what servers and workstations were patched, updated, or vulnerable, things were mysterious at best. Additionally, a construction project at the school meant the IT team was physically unable to access their server room. But they still needed to find a way to make sure updates were running on Lyncourt’s endpoints.

Before Automox, Tractor and Equipment (T&E) used many services to manage its IT environment. Unfortunately, the Symantec anti-virus console lost idle devices, Cisco Meraki gave them application lists but didn’t export cleanly, and SCCM patch management was tough to maintain if the endpoints weren’t local. T&E needed complete visibility to see which endpoints were being patched, especially if they sat idle for a long time. Additionally, technicians in the field with their endpoints needed to stay connected, even if they weren’t using a VPN.

John Andrews, the Chief Information Officer of Dysart Unified School District, faced severe software issues with Symantec’s web filter, including random service interruptions, complex user interfaces, and slow report generation. The district, with 26,000 students and 3,000 staff, required a reliable content control solution to ensure network safety and security. Additionally, the support from Symantec was inadequate, leading to delays in resolving critical issues. The district needed a dependable solution to protect students from unsafe internet sites, prevent virus and malware infiltration, and manage bandwidth effectively.

The expansion of Supreme Services resulted in more emails overflowing the staff’s inboxes. Emails came in so rapidly that employees were unable to recognize the difference between a customer or spam message. This resulted in employees avoiding checking their email altogether because a majority of their time was wasted sorting through spam. Guidry suggested an email security gateway be put in place and recommended Barracuda Networks since he had used it at his previous company, where upper-level management held Barracuda Networks in high regard. Now in a management role at Supreme Services, Guidry knew Barracuda Networks would be a reliable and cost-effective choice, as well as simple to implement within his network.

MEOS, a fast-growing managed service provider (MSP), was growing weary with its previous Webroot security solution. Ransomware attacks were occurring one to two times weekly across the service provider’s customer base. MEOS technicians became skilled at removing ransomware and restoring workstations and servers without any data loss, but incidents caused between one-half day to two days of downtime for affected customers. Creating even more havoc, Webroot updates started causing servers to freeze randomly. MEOS researched the issue thoroughly and the only solution was to reboot the servers, which resulted in even more downtime. Moving forward, MEOS tested several cybersecurity solutions, including Bitdefender, TrendMicro, Webroot, Sophos, and ESET. The obvious choice for MEOS was Bitdefender Cloud Security for Managed Service Providers (MSPs).

When Coleg Gwent, the largest higher education institution in Usk, Wales, was virtualizing thousands of desktops and servers, a problem emerged. The college’s security solution was consuming significant compute resources and causing virtualized endpoints to run slowly or even lock up. Also concerning were weekly outages resulting from infected endpoints, requiring IT to travel to classrooms and offices across multiple sites to clean and reimage machines. To address these issues, Coleg Gwent evaluated alternative security solutions and selected GravityZone Business Security from Bitdefender.

Lufthansa CityLine aimed to enhance customer satisfaction by improving flight punctuality and increasing available boarding time. The challenge was to integrate a continuous improvement process that could digitize lean methodologies and provide an agile way of working. The goal was to automate the comparison between reference and real processes to identify inefficiencies and areas for improvement. Additionally, the company wanted to implement a walkboarding process where passengers could walk to the aircraft at ground level, reducing the walking distance and starting from two positions.

As a high-growth satellite communications company, ALL.SPACE attracted the interest of many customers and investors with its breakthrough technology. To present itself in the best light and stand out from the competition, ALL.SPACE needed a systematic approach to showcase how their product was progressing and how it addressed evolving market needs. In addition, ALL.SPACE relied on manual, disconnected systems to maintain CAD/CAM design files and other documents associated with their product record. Given the complexity of the product design, ALL.SPACE required a system that could better manage and control high volumes of product data throughout the entire product lifecycle.

Mesa Labs realized that its legacy software systems could no longer support a growing business. Mesa labs relied on a manual system to manage the change control process. “We used ‘red folders’ containing all the change documents, and these were sent to the appropriate departments for approval. We also had to rely on timely updates to the ERP system. This led to ordering materials at the wrong revision level. It was also possible to have the same part number in different facilities for different items,” said Alcala. For any company regulated by the FDA and desiring to maintain ISO compliance, strict change control and adherence to documented procedures is paramount. “We had a couple of audits that were a cause for concern for FDA and ISO auditors. Management recognized that we needed to address this issue immediately.”

At Photonicare, the team was always wearing different hats to maintain their agility, and implementing a paper-based quality system seemed like a retroactive solution. They believed such a solution would ultimately lead to more inefficiencies and time spent on manually documenting product and quality activities where quality could slip through the cracks. In order to avoid this, they began searching for a cloud-based, purpose-built solution that would contribute to improving their internal team efficiencies and maintaining their agility. As an early-stage company, the team at Photonicare is always looking for ways to improve their efficiencies while maintaining their agility. Ryan Nolan, Co-founder and VP of Clinical Operations, recalls their antiquated way of doing things in the beginning when it came to documenting things on paper. As a result of having to wear multiple hats and juggle competing priorities at a startup, they reached a point where their documents weren't as organized as they wanted them to be. Knowing this antiquated way was a time-consuming solution for managing documentation and quality processes, Ryan and the team at Photonicare began searching for a purpose-built solution that was as agile as their team.