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CRATIS resolves cyberthreats 70% faster using platform approach to security

SUMMARY

For CRATIS, cybersecurity is paramount. Croatia’s top cloud and ICT provider, CRATIS must not only safeguard its rapidly expanding infrastructure, multicloud environments, and numerous customer-facing platforms, but also DC North, Croatia’s largest carrier-neutral data centre – one of the few that’s Tier III certified.

A simple, connected platform approach to security from Palo Alto Networks safeguards CRATIS’s networks, endpoints, mobile devices, virtual workloads, cloud resources, and DC North, ensuring complete protection and compliance while maintaining performance and availability.

RESULTS

70%

faster threat remediation

80%

faster vulnerability resolution

60%

reduction in cases

70%

faster discovery of new vulnerabilities

challenge

DC North: A European backbone for network connectivity

Known informally as ‘Croatia’s Fort Knox’, CRATIS’s DC North is the largest carrier-neutral data centre in the region, with 4 MW of power across six 24/7 data rooms.

CRATIS needs to safeguard customer data within this digital fortress while simultaneously protecting its internal environment, which spans multiple sites, hundreds of users, and thousands of endpoints. To address these needs, CRATIS required an approach that would:

Manage business growth: With DC North revenues growing significantly last year, CRATIS needs its cybersecurity to scale in line with this success and not be a barrier to growth.
Defend against cyberthreats: Protect against the latest cyber and physical threats, such as ransomware, and stop known, unknown, and zero-day threats.
Minimise risk: In CRATIS’s multitenant, multicloud environment, risks include misconfigured VLANs or leaked credentials that allow cross-tenant access.
Protect thousands of endpoints: Defend against phishing and stolen virtual private network (VPN) tokens that could give attackers privileged access.
Safeguard brand reputation: Regulatory pressures such as GDPR and NIS2 mean that a single data breach involving PII could bring fines and reputational harm.

“Palo Alto Networks brings deep technical expertise and strong partner support, allowing CRATIS to successfully deliver complex security projects, time after time. Collaboration is proactive, with Palo Alto Networks experts readily available for design sessions, troubleshooting, and knowledge transfer.”

Filip Sabalić

CAO, CRATIS

SOLUTION

Agile, AI-powered network and endpoint security

Palo Alto Networks is CRATIS’s cybersecurity partner of choice, delivering agile, AI-powered network and endpoint security across the entire CRATIS estate. “Palo Alto Networks is a recognised global leader in data centre security, offering cutting-edge solutions that align with our commitment to delivering secure cloud and SD-WAN services,” says Filip Sabalić, CAO at CRATIS. “Their market reputation also enhances the credibility of our offerings, giving customers confidence in the security of their cloud-based services.”

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series hardware firewalls, for example, are deployed at the data centre edge to provide robust network protection and high availability (HA) routers, for uninterrupted service and failover. They also act as IPsec VPN termination points, providing secure, encrypted communication between CRATIS’s branches and central infrastructure. The PA-Series hardware firewalls give zero trust visibility for all applications, users, and devices, and best-in-class protection against the latest threats.

Cortex XDR – seamlessly integrated with the firewalls – includes advanced threat prevention to secure workstations and mobile devices from malware, ransomware, and other threats. A single pane of glass gives the team unified detection, investigation, and response across endpoints, servers, and network devices.

Underpins rapid business growth

The Palo Alto Networks platforms serves as an enabler to DC North’s significant growth last year. It scales quickly and easily, including horizontal scaling by adding more firewalls and vertical scaling by increasing a single firewall’s resources.

Moreover, the management platform is simple to use, offering an intuitive interface that reduces the learning curve for administrators.

“The Palo Alto Networks experts are readily available for design sessions, troubleshooting, and knowledge transfer. Their commitment to innovation and customer success aligns with CRATIS’s own values, making the partnership both productive and strategic,” says Filip.
Improves incident response and resolution

Cortex XDR reduces CRATIS’s mean time to resolution (MTTR) by automatically detecting, investigating, and responding to threats across endpoints, networks, and the cloud. For example, centralised policy and case management provide a unified interface for stopping cyberthreats across endpoints, servers, and network devices.

“Case management in Cortex XDR is very impressive,” says Filip. “It enables automated workflows to respond to cases quickly and consistently, which has cut our manual effort and response times in half.”
Saves time and resources

Platformization allows the CRATIS team to work faster and smarter. AI-powered automation, ease of use, and other factors have contributed to a 70% increase in productivity, freeing people to concentrate on strategy and business success.
Supports seamless, secure connectivity

Firewalls are utilised as part of customers’ SD-WAN architecture, enabling secure, optimised connectivity between distributed office locations. They also provide secure, encrypted communication channels between CRATIS’s European offices and central infrastructure, and serve as the gateway for GlobalProtect, enabling secure remote access to internal resources for employees, contractors, and mobile users.

Looking ahead, CRATIS plans to deepen its collaboration with Palo Alto Networks by expanding the range of security solutions for customers. This includes extending firewall deployments, enhancing cloud and SASE (secure access service edge) offerings, and integrating advanced threat detection and response capabilities into CRATIS’s managed services portfolio. Each of these offerings forms part of the Palo Alto Networks Strata^™ zero trust solution, enabling the simple expansion and management of tools within the platform.

Experience the power of platformization with a true security partner.