Case Study
In brief
City Brokerage Limited
Financial Services
Brokerage Solutions
51-200 employees
Bangladesh
Palo Alto Networks Network Security Platform:
INTRODUCTION
CHALLENGE
At the outset, Nazrul wanted a solution that could keep CBL secure against cyberthreats such as ransomware and zero-day attacks. “Our incumbent security provider was incapable of keeping us protected and it was a tedious task for us to recover from that attack. We needed a stable, zero-day solution that offered us Zero Trust architecture to safeguard us from similar or more sophisticated attacks,” says Nazrul. The first step for CBL was to migrate all firewalls from the legacy solution.
Another concern that needed to be addressed was manageability and visibility of all traffic, as this was something that the organization lacked with the previous solution. Nazrul explains, “After the pandemic, ~50% percent of the company’s employees continued to work remotely and it became necessary to provide flexible and secure remote access for all users.” With ~50% percent of their application workload on the cloud, CBL wanted to fortify their cloud environment as well, by mitigating possible real-time threats. Additionally, they had to adhere to regulatory requirements as they are governed by the regulatory standards of the Dhaka Stock Exchange Limited and the Chittagong Stock Exchange Limited.
SOLUTION
Being in the financial sector, CBL needed to strengthen its security posture. Based on their position and ranking in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™, and the fact that City Bank, the parent company, had deployed their solutions effectively, CBL selected Palo Alto Networks. In consultation with their partner, Gazi Communications, CBL selected Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) across their perimeter or network demilitarized zone network (DMZ). Nazrul says, “We began with a proof-of-concept, and have the stability we desired since we opted for the solution three years ago. CBL now has the advantage of superior visibility across our core applications.” CBL is the first brokerage company in Bangladesh to deploy Palo Alto Networks NGFWs.
The organization needed 100 percent uptime of all their security services and this has been possible with Palo Alto Networks NGFW. Gazi Communications was integral to the success of the deployment. They worked on the infrastructure design, device configurations, and deployment. According to Nazrul, the Palo Alto Networks team went above and beyond from the get-go, working round the clock, and this set them apart from other vendors. He recalls a specific issue that he faced on Christmas Day, and says the situation was handled seamlessly by the tech support team at Palo Alto Networks.
RESULTS
The monitoring tool from Palo Alto Networks has meant increased productivity, as the team saves significantly on time spent to assess threats. “The team would need to look at the monitor 24/7, but with the new solution, this can be achieved within minutes,” states Nazrul.
Prior to deploying the solution, CBL had introduced a third-party solution and had to keep two IT personnel to monitor threats. The company has a good return on investment on the Palo Alto Networks solution, as they were able to stop using the third-party solution, and realized annual savings of US$9,000. On the whole, this has enabled CBL to save US$50,000 in operational expenditure.
CONCLUSION