COVER STORY nd-user
FRASERS GROUP SECURES GROWTH AND IMPROVES CYBER HYGIENE WITH TANIUM
Tanium helps Frasers Group , one of the UK ’ s largest retailers , manage risk and increase business value as it becomes a global powerhouse through acquisitions . Matthew Wilmot , Group Head of Enterprise IT and Information Security , Frasers Group , discusses the business requirements – which included new capabilities for penetration testing , vulnerability scanning and greater endpoint visibility , and tells us how he stepped in to manage this seamlessly with the help of Tanium . rasers Group is all
F about growth . The UK-based retailer started in 1982 as a modest onestore operation and has grown into a global , multi-brand powerhouse . Today Frasers operates hundreds of stores , employs over 25,000 people and runs both brick-and-mortar and online operations in 25 countries .
Much of Frasers ’ growth has come via acquisitions , often of troubled companies . It ’ s a strategy that ’ s ongoing .
All that M & A activity also means merging IT systems , a complex task that includes applying cybersecurity practices . More specifically , Frasers must decide whether a newly acquired unit should be permitted to follow its own cybersecurity rules or be required to follow those of the corporate parent .
To oversee this challenge , fairly recently , Frasers created a global group for information security and privacy . It hired Matthew Wilmot , formerly an IT consultant , as the group ’ s head . Wilmot now works closely with Richard Marlow , who joined in recent years as part of an acquisition and is today Frasers ’ manager of vulnerability testing .
Working together , they created Frasers ’ long list of cybersecurity must-haves . These included new capabilities for penetration testing , vulnerability scanning and greater endpoint visibility .
“ We were struggling to get a hold on our overall environment ,” said Wilmot . “ The tooling we had really didn ’ t tell us much about our assets .”
Clearly , something new was needed and fortunately , Wilmot was already familiar with Tanium and suspected Frasers could use Tanium to dramatically improve its cyber hygiene , gain visibility into its vulnerabilities and keep its systems secure .
Initially , Tanium was deployed only in Frasers ’ Game unit , a gaming specialist that operates over 250 stores in the UK plus an expansive website . Because
Matthew Wilmot , Group Head of Enterprise IT and Information Security , Frasers Group
Game operates as a standalone business , Wilmot reasoned , it could function as his test lab for Tanium . The first test was limited to just 10 stores because the timing coincided with the company ’ s busiest time , the weeks in December leading up to Christmas .
The test was a success and Frasers rolled out Tanium to an additional 200 stores , again with a smooth delivery .
During the Christmas season , as many other retailers were scrambling to mitigate the Log4j vulnerability , Wilmot , Marlow and their teams were celebrating the festivities . That ’ s because Tanium helped the company identify where www . intelligentciso . com
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