Intelligent CISO Issue 38 | Page 53

Flexibility is designed into the Flex business model and it extends to the company ’ s manufacturing operations in every corner of the world .
COVER STORY
New Year extend into a lockdown , we felt the pressure . Most of our factories were considered essential and could remain open , but our indirect workforce would need to work from home . These are the people who handle critical aspects of the business , including procurement and logistics . Our financial staff were especially important as we were approaching the fiscal year close . We needed to make sure they had full , uninterrupted access to our financial systems and it was clear our old VPN solution would not hold up .”
The enterprise IT team went into emergency mode . Flex engaged Armature for assistance once again and deployed teams of engineers around the world to deploy Prisma Access , pushing out clients to 20,000 end-users and setting up service connections regionally . The team started on a Monday and by the following Monday , had Prisma Access turned up and everyone switched over from the old VPN with zero downtime .
Wetschnig said : “ Our original timeline was to rollout Prisma Access in about six to eight weeks . We ended up doing it in seven days . When the lockdown was announced in China and the people at our biggest service centre needed to work from home , we were prepared .”
Enabling vital procurement and logistics work from home
Closing the company ’ s books for the fiscal year was just one important business need for enabling staff to work from home . As a manufacturer , Flex was also quickly enlisted directly in the COVID-19 battle by retooling some of its operations to make ventilators . In a testament to the company ’ s operational agility , Flex set up six new ventilator programmes within a few weeks , when such a move typically takes manufacturers 18 – 36 months .
Shahin comments on the value of having staff able to work successfully at home during this critical time . “ The ability for our people to work from home was absolutely a factor in enabling that shift to manufacturing ventilators . At the end of the day , a large part of our business is procurement . Our end-users are mostly buyers . How we bring in materials and components and put them all together to ship out a finished product is extremely important . With our people securely working from home using Prisma Access , they could still support those processes and allow us to quickly ramp up for the new demand presented by COVID-19 .”
Advanced security extends to at-home workers
With 20,000 people working from home , the security of all those remote connections is a top priority . Wetschnig pointed out that the difference Prisma Access brings , as compared to traditional VPN , is that it extends the next-generation security features of the Palo Alto Networks platform to every remote endpoint . Users can only connect to Flex ’ s data centre or SaaS applications by passing through the same full inspection of the nextgeneration firewalls , as if they were directly connected to the Flex network . “ The difference comes down to the kind of security policies we can apply with Prisma Access — the traffic analysis , threat prevention , URL filtering and segmentation . For a security person , that ’ s what really counts .”
One of Wetschnig ’ s biggest cybersecurity concerns is the potential for malware , contracted at home , then spreading back to the corporate network . He said : “ In a home environment , we don ’ t have any control of the network . People are on all kinds of sites , kids are playing computer games , and you have to put your corporate assets in such an environment . That ’ s where Prisma Access was very comforting for us

Flexibility is designed into the Flex business model and it extends to the company ’ s manufacturing operations in every corner of the world .

because of all the security features it provides . It gives us confidence that no cyberthreat from home will move to our corporate network .”
Wetschnig said : “ Prisma Access is also simple for the user — that was a tremendous help for us . It ’ s not a big deal for people to use . We were looking for an easy , stable client and the ability to apply centralised security policies . Prisma Access matched all those points . If you can bring up a secure remote access solution for 20,000 people in seven days , I think that shows we made the right choice .”
Accelerating incident response with automation
The successful rollout of Prisma Access has further strengthened the partnership between Flex and Palo Alto Networks . Flex recently acquired Cortex XSOAR , the extended security orchestration , automation and response platform from Palo Alto Networks . The IT and security teams at Flex will use Cortex XSOAR to intelligently correlate threat indicators and determine if an incident is an attack , and then automate specific response actions based on the nature of the threat .
Shahin said : “ The automation provided by Cortex XSOAR is expected to help Flex reduce the number of tickets and close tickets faster with more efficiency . This will free up valuable resources and cycles for both SecOps and IT .” u www . intelligentciso . com
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