Law Enforcement Agency Restores Confidence in Cyber Defenses

Cymulate gives me the confidence that I know what’s going on in my security stack. It doesn’t just provide me with security validation, it allows me to look over the horizon at the next biggest potential threat.

- CISO

Criminal Justice Relies on Strong Cyber Defenses

This law enforcement organization is responsible not only for local policing but also for significant national crime detection and reduction strategies across various disciplines. Its small cybersecurity team must protect the organization’s fraud services and all electronic records related to criminal investigations. This ensures the force can operate effectively and bring offenders to justice. However, the security team wasn’t confident that its security controls would protect the organization in case of attack because: 

• The team could not continuously validate its controls
  While the team conducted its required annual penetration tests, they were manual, limited in scope and provided only a point-in-time assessment.

• It was challenging to ensure protection against emergent threats
  The security team could not independently test its security against new threats in the wild. Instead, it had to ask its IT team to test the controls, taking anywhere from two days to a week before it could determine whether the controls needed remediation. 

• The team could not keep up with patching its vulnerabilities
  The team would run vulnerability scans but did not know how to prioritize the long list of critical vulnerabilities that were consistently found.  

Like many small security teams, this team first considered outsourcing its security validation and regular testing, but it quickly recognized that this would be costly and wouldn’t give the team the visibility and independence it required. The organization’s CISO began investigating automated security validation tools such as breach and attack simulation (BAS). 

The Cymulate Solution

The CISO determined that Cymulate was the ideal solution to empower his team. He reflected, “Back in 2019, we were one of the first organizations in the UK to use Cymulate. I thought the product was very innovative and has continued to meet my expectations. Looking back, I truly appreciate how our security organization has matured alongside the product.”  

The security team uses Cymulate to: 

Benefits

The security team has embedded Cymulate into many of its security processes:

• Independence
  With Cymulate, the team can independently test its security and run assessments whenever needed without waiting for an annual penetration test.
• Increased efficiency
  The platform’s automation enables the small team to increase its validation activities and strengthen its security posture.
• Threat intelligence
  With continuous updates from the Cymulate Threat Research Group, the security team leverages this threat intelligence within and beyond the platform to bolster their defenses.

Solution