Situation
Lycksele Municipality was a satisfied Panda customer, but opted to switch to the cheaper alternative Microsoft Endpoint Protection for budgetary reasons.
When Panda rep Benny Jonasson got in touch to find out if they would be interested in testing whether their Microsoft solution really was providing adequate protection, IT Manager Pierre Sandström agreed to reinstall Panda.
Sandström had investigated the market and had seen that Panda endpoint products were leading the way in terms of detection, which is why he was happy to go back to Panda services. After rollout, undetected malicious code that Panda was able to find started to flood in in large quantities. The detection uncovered an abundance of unwanted programs and viruses even on the first day and the switch back to Panda was official.
Solution
Panda Endpoint Protection was brought in again and distributed via Microsoft Systems Center. Installation went smoothly. Out of a good 1,100 computers, manual rectification work was needed on approximately 30 computers where the agent was installed, but not the protection itself.
After a while, Benny Jonasson got in touch again about the add-on service Panda Adaptive Defense 360. This is a type of automated black- and whitelisting that also helps the major source of viruses – namely end users – by blocking or mapping everything that is running and is unknown. Alongside the municipality’s administration, the issue also found traction with local schools, and the number of licenses was increased to 2,000. For the municipality it was important for all users to be protected, regardless of the network they were using to access the Internet and even if they were using their own device in the municipality’s network (BYOD). The solution also assists in blocking content that the municipality deems to be inappropriate, such as content of a criminal nature. Previously, this could have been accessed willfully or by mistake, but with the web filtering function it is now blocked instead.
The WannaCry and Petya attacks in May and June 2017, which attracted a lot of attention in the press, did not affect Lycksele Municipality.
They were diligent in installing patches, but there was still a small vulnerability that Adaptive Defense 360 addressed. In the reports that are sent on an ongoing basis, Sandström can read how the protection has worked and, if there’s a particular incident, he just has to log in and see what happened. It’s easy to drill down to a particular client with an encrypted file and the information that comes to light in this way is valuable.
Pierre Sandström believes Panda Security is at the forefront when it comes to outfoxing the hackers and their ingenuity, and Lycksele Municipality is incredibly satisfied with Adaptive Defense 360 as they have not had any problems with breaches since it was installed on all clients.
Evaluation
The fact that everything is already summarized on the login page is appreciated by Sandström. This makes protection management easy. And the end users don’t notice anything either because the protection is managed centrally from any location and at any time.
Contacting the Panda support team always goes smoothly and the support is good. They’re easy to contact and speak Swedish, which is appreciated.
When the protection was first put on the servers, the meter for detecting viruses and unwanted programs on the status page went through the roof, but now they are protected on all fronts.
The expectations they had about the products have clearly been met. Everything has worked impeccably and Lycksele Municipality is extremely happy to be a Panda customer again. The protection will also be useful when the GDPR replaces Sweden’s Personal Data Act in May 2018, since the reporting function aids administration in the event of an attack and the protection itself means that they will be able to negotiate attacks without being affected.
Before having Adaptive Defense 360, systems could be restored using backups, but important information could go astray. The time and energy put into rectification after an attack is now being put to better use with many man-hours being saved. According to Pierre Sandström, there is another factor that should be taken into account when investing in complete protection: the fact that “production” doesn’t need to be interrupted in order to stop an attack getting through. He is “incredibly satisfied” with the protection from Adaptive Defense 360 and recommends others in similar positions make use of the solution, both at the networking events he attends and also readers of this case study.
Benefits
The main advantages of Panda Adaptive Defense 360 are the following:
- Highest detection rate in the market
- Full-stack EPP and EDR capabilities
- Simple interface; both overview and details are displayed clearly
- Can be accessed from anywhere using Cloud technology
- Blocks unknown programs and prevents end users downloading unsuitable programs or visiting illegal sites