Swire Oilfield Services

Overview

Swire Oilfield Services, part of the Swire Group, was established in 1979 and is the world’s largest supplier of offshore containers to the global energy industry and a leading supplier of offshore workspaces, aviation services, testing & inspection and engineering services. Swire Oilfield Services operates in 15 countries, with staff numbering over 500 across 28 global bases, and has a presence in all the major oil and gas regions.

Challenge

Protecting global points of business › The company’s strategically placed hubs in major energy capitals across the globe enable it to support customers and employees wherever their business takes them. However, this presents the key security challenge of protecting business in some of the world’s most remote places.

Recent acquisitions and limited IT resources create complications for a growing security portfolio › When Andrew Currie joined as the company’s Head of IT in 2011, Swire Oilfield Services had five different security solutions in place for email – all of them the result of acquisitions – and was never able to standardize its security. This became a critical issue when the number of malware and phishing attempts targeting Swire Oilfield Services’ expansive offering of cloud app services surpassed an all-time high. Running this kind of set up in several remote locations (where connection issues vary) can make security challenging.

“What we have on-site, at our most remote locations, is the absolute minimum IT hardware infrastructure. The consistent problems with power supply and system back-ups add to the difficulty in securing these locations. Data network and service costs also vary from country to country. The move to services in the cloud has reduced the cost for Swire Oilfield Services.”
— Andrew Currie

Solution

Forcepoint proves it can meet and exceed security goals › Swire Oilfield Services needed to deploy a solution to standardize security. The evaluated vendors would need to provide proven performance in a cloud solution.

“When we did the proof-of-concept with Forcepoint Web Security Cloud and Email Security Cloud, it ticked all of our boxes in terms of our overall security goal, price points and ease-ofdeployment.”
— Andrew Currie

Following a successful POC, Swire Oilfield Services signed-on for a long-term future with Forcepoint Cloud solutions, a decision that Andrew Currie called “a no-brainer.”

Results

Realizing ROI in a matter of days › Forcepoint Web & Email Security Cloud maintains the company’s security with automatic updates in countries that previously made operations challenging. The high volume of malware and Cryptolocker instances entering the network was quickly “decimated,” as Currie puts it. ROI was realized in just a matter of days:

“After four days of the solution running, we started seeing the benefits of it. Our malware problem? It was decimated almost overnight.”
— Andrew Currie

Focusing on people first › Today, the team at Swire Oilfield Services is able to focus on technology that adds real value to the business. Comfortable with the efficacy of Forcepoint’s solution, they instead focus their time and efforts on improving services and completing operational tasks.

“The implementation of Forcepoint was such a dramatic change that people around the office commented on it. They were so used to clearing 20-30 spam emails out of their inbox every day. Instead of counting those instances in the hundreds, we’re now counting in the single numbers, if at all.”
— Andrew Currie

Forcepoint proves its value with performance and experience › With Forcepoint, security in the cloud is continuously monitored, maintained, patched and kept up to date. It’s no longer dependent on manual, end-user labor.

“We remain with Forcepoint because of its breadth of experience in the cybersecurity industry. Forcepoint has built that experience into its Web and Email solutions for the cloud and I feel confident knowing it’s our first line of defence.”
— Andrew Currie

Forcepoint delivers comprehensive, centrally managed protection that lets Swire Oilfield Services progress their business with effective security — wherever its users are.