Genetic Research Company

The Challenge

Protecting sensitive healthcare communications

This strategic genetic research company is an innovative organisation that offers genetic testing for patients throughout its home market and is rapidly expanding across additional Asian markets. Working directly with hospitals and clinics, the firm offers a variety of genetic research services. These include early detection of diseases and other healthcare risks.

The firmʼs network infrastructure plays a critical role not only in research, but in sharing data with healthcare facilities, patients and other researchers. This means its IT team is under constant pressure to do more with less.

“We maintain everything related to information technology, including the infrastructure and applications, as well as governance and security,ˮ said the IT director. “Our team is very lean, so weʼre always exploring how advanced technology can help us improve our productivity and efficiency.ˮ

With a large volume of communications and data, the staff can become overwhelmed by examining individual email threats and chasing down false positives. The IT director and team were looking for a solution that could help them automate responses to cyberthreats, to help reduce manual tasks that could waste limited time and resources.

The Solution

A multifaceted approach to security

After evaluating a variety of leading security tools, the organisation chose to migrate to a Proofpoint Enterprise solution package, extending protection to its approximately 800 email users. Proofpoint Enterprise offers a rich set of capabilities, including email protection, advanced threat detection, email fraud detection and more.

“We were looking for a solution that was extremely reliable, as well as intelligent, to minimise the number of false positives that we received,ˮ said the IT director.

The Proofpoint solution provides proactive protection against the latest email threats, backed by machine learning capabilities. Running on the companyʼs Microsoft 365 platform, it provides protection against cyberattacks, such as phishing, ransomware, business email compromise, account takeover and more.

The organisation also deployed Proofpoint Internal Mail Defence. This solution provides the company with a multilayered approach to protecting its internal email. It also helps the IT director and team detect compromised accounts quickly and take action before threats can spread.

The Results

A smarter approach to email security frees up staff

The new Proofpoint solution has been highly successful in blocking more suspicious emails than the organisationʼs previous email protection products. Proofpoint is effective at not only blocking phishing attacks, but also automating processes to help improve staff productivity.

“The protection we get from Proofpoint has been very effective, and it helps our team work more efficiently,ˮ said the IT director. “They donʼt need to access it frequently to review a large number of emails, instead, they can focus only on the risky messages that the solution captures. It saves our security team time. And it gives us a higher level of protection for our users.ˮ

“The security team is very happy with this solution after bringing it on board,ˮ the IT director added. “They can have more insights into email status and also work much more efficiently. Our email queue is much shorter now, which frees up staff to focus on other issues.ˮ CUSTOMER NAME | PROOFPOINT

The Proofpoint Email Protection solution has also helped the organisation achieve its goal of minimising false positive threats. This saves the staff additional time. “After deploying our new solution, fewer than 1% of the total blocked cases were false-positive,ˮ said the IT director.

The new solution is playing a strategic role as well, by helping the organisation balance immediate security needs with longer-term initiatives.

“We donʼt have separate teams focusing on security and infrastructure,ˮ explained the IT director. “For this project, we have combined them, and deliver on the initiative as one. This project enables our lean teams to improve security, as well as the network infrastructure.ˮ

As the organisation continues to look ahead to the long term, it has confidence that Proofpoint has provided a strong foundation for protection throughout the organisation. The team is also exploring other Proofpoint solutions. These include Proofpoint ZenGuide™, which provides security awareness training to empower employees and strengthen its culture of security.