Iccrea Banking Group

Overview

The Iccrea Banking Group is a group of companies that provide products and services to the Banche di Credito Cooperativo e Casse Rurali (Credit Cooperative and Rural Banks, or BCCCR) in Italy. It provides advanced financial instruments, asset management products, SMB loans and other related items to help BCCCR members compete and support their local economic development. The Group is controlled by Iccrea Holding, whose capital is held by the BCC-CRs.

Challenge

In 2012, the Iccrea Banking Group decided to streamline its Web security and email security deployments. It had been relying on four different cybersecurity products with very complex management and updating processes. The Group wanted to consolidate these into one unified solution that could be centrally managed from a single console and to improve its defenses at the same time.

“The continuous and constant changes in malware today forces companies to pay much closer attention to security.”
— Claudio Braglia, Technology Director, Iccrea Banking Group

Solution

Because the Group had already been using a Forcepoint email security product with great results, it decided to consider deploying Forcepoint as its unified Web, email and data loss prevention solution.

The choice to evaluate Forcepoint was due primarily to its ability to centrally manage Web and email security. However, Braglia said its advanced monitoring and reporting features clearly represented added value compared to other solutions being considered.

Forcepoint combines Web and Email Security with data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities, providing unified content security to protect on-site and remote employees against the latest threats. It provides security by identifying, classifying and analyzing content in real time to ensure protection against known and unknown advanced attacks. A typical deployment is via Forcepoint appliances and cloud-based email security components that remove spam and threats from inbound emails before they reach the network.

By September 2012, the Group had deployed Forcepoint across 1,500 workstations to evaluate whether the solution could meet the Group’s needs and requirements. To enable high performance without impacting user productivity or other operations, it had decided to install two email security appliances and two additional Web security appliances. This configuration provides a high-performance platform that is easily scalable with no need for additional investments in hardware.

“We started testing in the production area and immediately obtained excellent results. In addition, the simpler management, compared to the previous solutions, and the centralized monitoring with a single console, convinced us that Forcepoint was the best solution for the needs and requirements of the Group.”
— Braglia

Results

In the first year of Forcepoint deployment, the Group enjoyed fewer Help Desk requests for Web security and email security issues. The solution also enabled the IT team to perform fewer manual interventions. Forcepoint thus not only improved system management but also optimized the use of the Group’s staff resources. The IT managers who were working with the previous products acknowledged the exceptional ease of use and high flexibility of the solution.

Additionally, the Group also saw a decrease in operational costs because it no longer had to manage four different environments and maintain complex software updates.

With Forcepoint, the IT staff is able to tailor policies according to the specific needs of individual employees. One example is the provision of access to the social web, which is restricted to only those employees who must use it for work; thus, the Group avoids the risks associated with its incorrect use.

In addition to Web security, Forcepoint monitors emails, which now go through only one channel, allowing for spam to be filtered and removed before it reaches the final recipient. The Group has seen an improved detection of email threats, resulting in fewer malware incidents. Further, the sandboxing feature that analyzes all email attachments enables the blocking of any inbound malware disguised by other objects.

In conclusion, thanks to Forcepoint, the Iccrea Banking Group enjoys fewer Help Desk requests for web security and email security issues, improved systems management, optimized use of staff resources, decreased operational costs, and other benefits.

Iccrea Banking Group has relied on Forcepoint security solutions since 2010