Blog

Liderazgo del pensamiento

Ransomware

A new sheriff in town: why the city of St. Catharines turned to Darktrace to protect its digital assets

A new sheriff in town: why the city of St. Catharines turned to Darktrace to protect its digital assetsDefault blog imageDefault blog image
09
Aug 2022
09
Aug 2022

The City of St. Catharines is the largest city in Ontario, Canada’s Niagara Region. We strive to meet the needs of our over 140,000 residents. Cyber disruption could stop our municipality from functioning, so having a strong security stack is critical to our mission.

Globally, 44% of ransomware attacks target municipalities. In Canada, smaller cities have had to deal with increased attempts by threat actors to access information, without significant increases in security staff or budgets. 

Data breaches incur an average cost totaling $6.35 million CAD because of ransomware payments, fines for leaked personally identifiable information, or recovery costs. That number does not quantify the additional reputational damage, PR setbacks, and other repercussions. Instead of resigning ourselves to accepting a greater cyber-risk, we turned to Darktrace to protect our network, email, and Microsoft 365 Suite.  

How Self-Learning AI buys back time

I’m sure we as a municipality are grappling with the same issues that other cities of a similar size face from a budgetary standpoint. We do not have enough boots on the ground and our IT team is stretched thin. Investigating cyber security incidents takes a lot of time. We must find correlations between several old systems and manually go through security event logs to determine which incidents require follow-up. These factors greatly increased our response time.  

When we first implemented Darktrace, we immediately saw that it does all the heavy lifting for us when it comes to the analysis of breach events. The Cyber AI Analyst shows a granular breakdown of the digital traffic coming into and out of the City, all on a single screen. This helps us separate the meaningful data from the noise.

I now start all my investigations with the Cyber AI Analyst. It sets me up with actionable insights that ensure I focus my time and energy in the most productive ways.

Darktrace also saves my team time and labor when it comes to responding to incidents. When it does detect attacks, it autonomously responds in seconds to contain them without interfering with any normal business operations. 

We have been able to configure Darktrace’s settings to further streamline our workload. We’ve made several adjustments that reduce the number of helpdesk tickets my team receives, which ensures we’re spending our time on high-value work.

Darktrace not only makes up for the limited resources of our IT team, but also augments us. By simplifying our investigations and autonomously stopping attacks, Darktrace gives us more time to work on our other IT responsibilities without worrying about our security.  

Darktrace/Network brings visibility and defense 

Before Darktrace, we didn’t have visibility into the east-west traffic on our network. Once installed, it provided a view of traffic we had never anticipated, and we saw connections that we never even knew existed.  

Darktrace/Network has insight into every laptop, server, phone, and user. The Self-Learning AI learns the “pattern of life” of our organization, so that it can recognize unusual activity that indicates a cyber-attack. In the case of a serious emerging attack, Darktrace RESPOND can take precise actions to stop it while otherwise allowing normal digital operations.

Darktrace/Network maps connections made within our network, whether between users and servers or between devices. It sorts users into groups that behave similarly, making it more obvious if one acts unusually. Darktrace/Email and Darktrace/Apps extend this coverage to our email and Microsoft 365 Suite, respectively. In this way, Darktrace allows us to see comprehensively into end-user traffic. 

Darktrace can stop attempts to download malicious software, move malware laterally, upload private data, and everything in between. This means we are protected from attacks that are notoriously difficult to find, such as stealth attacks, machine speed ransomwares, insider threats, and zero-days.  

Darktrace brings peace of mind 

The Self-Learning AI has transformed my skepticism of AI into enthusiasm. I now see the possibilities with AI are limited only by one’s imagination, and the Darktrace team has harnessed it to create a great security tool.  

Darktrace has proven to be the addition we needed to keep our digital landscape secure while contending with the limitations of budget and staffing during a time of increasingly frequent attacks targeting municipalities. My team’s support for Darktrace has been outstanding, and we have no regrets. 

Darktrace gives us the assurance that no matter what rules we put in place regarding the flow of traffic on our network, it will always be present to reconfigure our defenses and safeguard our digital assets should an attack occur. It works 24/7, at machine speed, and augments our IT team. That defines peace of mind! 

More in this series:

No se ha encontrado ningún artículo.

¿Te gusta esto y quieres más?

Reciba el último blog en su bandeja de entrada
Gracias. Hemos recibido su envío.
¡Ups! Algo salió mal al enviar el formulario.
DENTRO DEL SOC
Darktrace son expertos de talla mundial en inteligencia de amenazas, caza de amenazas y respuesta a incidentes, y proporcionan apoyo al SOC las 24 horas del día a miles de clientes de Darktrace en todo el mundo. Inside the SOC está redactado exclusivamente por estos expertos y ofrece un análisis de los ciberincidentes y las tendencias de las amenazas, basado en la experiencia real sobre el terreno.
AUTOR
SOBRE EL AUTOR
Wayne Racey
Manager of IT Operations, City of St Catharines (Guest Contributor)
share this article
CASOS DE USO
PRODUCTOS DESTACADOS
No se ha encontrado ningún artículo.
Cobertura básica
No se ha encontrado ningún artículo.
Este artículo
A new sheriff in town: why the city of St. Catharines turned to Darktrace to protect its digital assets
Compartir
Twitter logoLinkedIn logo

Buenas noticias para su negocio.
Malas noticias para los malos.

Inicie su prueba gratuita

Inicie su prueba gratuita

Entrega flexible
Puedes instalarlo virtualmente o con hardware.
Instalación rápida
Sólo 1 hora de instalación - y aún menos para una prueba de seguridad del correo electrónico.
Elige tu viaje
Pruebe IA de autoaprendizaje donde más lo necesite, incluyendo la nube, la red o el correo electrónico.
Sin compromiso
Acceso completo al visualizador de amenazas Darktrace y a tres informes de amenazas a medida, sin obligación de compra.
For more information, please see our Privacy Notice.
Gracias. Hemos recibido su envío.
¡Ups! Algo salió mal al enviar el formulario.

Obtenga una demostración

Entrega flexible
Puedes instalarlo virtualmente o con hardware.
Instalación rápida
Sólo 1 hora de instalación - y aún menos para una prueba de seguridad del correo electrónico.
Elige tu viaje
Pruebe IA de autoaprendizaje donde más lo necesite, incluyendo la nube, la red o el correo electrónico.
Sin compromiso
Acceso completo al visualizador de amenazas Darktrace y a tres informes de amenazas a medida, sin obligación de compra.
Gracias. Hemos recibido su envío.
¡Ups! Algo salió mal al enviar el formulario.

Check out this article by Darktrace: A new sheriff in town: why the city of St. Catharines turned to Darktrace to protect its digital assets