COVER STORY
Managing security is an important aspect of Ali Katkhada’ s job. The Group CIO of Depa Group has established the mindset that cybersecurity is the responsibility of everyone in the company, and cascades security awareness from the board of directors down to the most junior resources. Depa Group has built a strong security programme with endpoint technology, firewalls, intrusion prevention, SIEM tools, policy and procedures, and governance to ensure adherence to the company’ s security priorities.
Being a public company with many regulatory compliance requirements, Katkhada said a robust security programme is mandatory. But he realised the company needed more expertise and insight into emerging threats than internal resources could provide.
IT,” Katkhada explained.“ Over time, we realised we had lost our focus. We are a construction company, not an IT company, and we shouldn’ t stray from our core purpose. Instead of maintaining a large team of IT experts, we recognised that many companies could do the job better than us.”
Solution
Secureworks managed detection and response( MDR) solution, Taegis MDR, provides Depa Group with the level of security expertise and insights into the threat landscape Katkhada sought to elevate the company’ s security programme. Taegis MDR delivers around-theclock threat monitoring, detection, investigation and response fuelled by advanced analytics.
“ We had an extensive team of security personnel who monitored everything and sent reports to the Head of
Investigations are infused with proprietary threat intelligence from the Secureworks Counter Threat Unit( CTU) research team, and findings from realworld threat hunts, incident response and security testing engagements. Taegis MDR leverages the Taegis security operations platform, which is used by the Depa Group team and the Secureworks SOC. This open platform seamlessly integrates with leading security technologies from hundreds of sources across endpoint, network, cloud, identity, OT, email and business applications.
Depa Group’ s team can engage SOC analysts within 90 seconds via live chat in Taegis. Additionally, Secureworks MDR includes access to full-service incident response capabilities, one year of raw telemetry storage, and proactive monthly threat hunting.
“ We don’ t cut corners when it comes to security investments,” Katkhada said.“ We have top-brand firewalls everywhere, even at small construction site offices. We educate our employees through regular awareness campaigns. We chose Secureworks, a Sophos company as our cybersecurity partner because they provide comprehensive threat intelligence, which is crucial for proactive defence.”
The Cybersecurity Journey
This proactive approach, coupled with the ability to share reports and insights with executives and other stakeholders in the business, helps Katkhada meet his goal of ensuring everyone in Depa Group is aware of the importance of strong cybersecurity.
“ We evaluated all of the security players in the market,” Katkhada said.“ We held several meetings and evaluations, and Secureworks, a Sophos company not only ticked all the boxes with their comprehensive solution, but they showed us two years ago their interest
www. intelligentcio. com INTELLIGENTCIO MIDDLE EAST 15