Media Group Ukraine Heightens System Security, Protecting Client Data and Its Corporate Reputation

Providing comprehensive security coverage while reducing IT administrative overhead

Founded in 2010, Media Group Ukraine is one of the biggest media holding companies in Ukraine, managing numerous television channels and a production firm.

Like all major media organizations, Media Group Ukraine faces the constant risk of attacks on its IT systems – particularly its web portals and web-facing financial systems. Any data breaches could result in severe reputational damage and loss of client trust – ultimately impacting the company’s bottom line.

However, maintaining high levels of round-the-clock security for the organisation’s hugely diverse environment is no easy task.

Valeriy Krotov, a Computer Systems Analyst at Media Group Ukraine, explains: “Media Group Ukraine owns subsidiaries spread across many locations, each of which has its own IT infrastructure provided by a different subset of vendors. In the past, whenever a new threat such as a virus or an attack emerged, we had to manually work out which of our systems were at risk. The longer we spent on this, the greater the risk of the system weakness being exploited.

“As the company entered a phase of rapid growth, we knew that unless we could find a more efficient way to maintain high levels of security for an increasing number of systems, administrative costs would spiral and harm our efficiency. Or worse still, we could fall victim to an attack and have client data stolen. To mitigate these risks, we began looking for a solution that could automate and improve vulnerability management.”

Finding the best fit

After trialling solutions from several vendors, Media Group Ukraine decided to deploy Enterprise TruRisk Platform, an integrated suite of security solutions that helps strengthen IT infrastructures and protect them against breaches. The company’s chosen partner Betta Security Limited ensured a smooth deployment, and ran training sessions to help staff get the maximum possible value from the solution straightaway.

“When we were conducting pilots of several solutions, we observed that Enterprise TruRisk Platform includes a wealth of functionalities that were missing in many products from other vendors,” adds Valeriy Krotov.

“For example, with Qualys we can set and monitor performance objectives for IT staff regarding the elimination of previously identified vulnerabilities, and prioritize remediation efforts to ensure faster fixes for the host vulnerabilities that have the greatest potential impact on our business. We can also perform static code analysis to spot weaknesses in large web projects. These options were lacking in many other solutions that we considered.”

Closing security loopholes

Delivered via a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) deployment, the Qualys solution continuously monitors the security of major IT systems for Media Group Ukraine and its subsidiaries, scanning around 250 endpoints to pinpoint potential weaknesses.

Valeriy Krotov remarks: “We found that Enterprise TruRisk Platform was much better at detecting weaknesses in its scans of Microsoft Windows systems than many other vulnerability management solutions. The vast majority of our systems run on Windows, so having comprehensive coverage for this environment is a huge advantage.”

He adds, “Equally, the Qualys solution has proved to be very useful for discovering previously unknown hosts – for example, this could be a PC that is currently not in use – and assessing their vulnerabilities. We also use the software to generate maps of the network structure, helping administrators and security auditors to visualise and understand its topology.”

When new vulnerabilities are brought to light by vendors or third parties, the Qualys solution pinpoints them and brings them to the attention of IT staff in the form of user-friendly reports, with advice on the optimal remediation path. Seeing exactly which parts of the infrastructure are affected by problems enables the staff to take targeted corrective action fast.

Effective protection of systems and data

The Qualys solution is helping Media Group Ukraine to tighten its grip on IT security.

“With Enterprise TruRisk Platform, we can spot potential vulnerabilities in our IT systems sooner, so we can address them before they can be exploited,” comments Valeriy Krotov. “Adopting a proactive approach to IT security is helping us to protect our own and our clients’ systems and data much more effectively.”

Switching to an automated solution has also cut by 80 percent the amount of time IT staff spend on security-related matters. These efficiency gains will help Media Group Ukraine to reduce the need to hire additional IT staff as the organization continues to grow, keeping IT operational costs down.

The modular nature of the Qualys solution means that Media Group Ukraine can easily introduce new functionality through other Qualys solutions to meet new requirements as they emerge.

Valeriy Krotov concludes: “In the near future, we are planning to introduce the Web Application Scanning functionality of the Enterprise TruRisk Platform solution to protect our web applications against hackers – another step towards our aim of watertight IT security.”