Client Profile
The client is a mid-sized financial services firm with over 500 employees, operating across North America and Asia. The firm handles sensitive customer data, high-frequency financial transactions, and operates under strict compliance mandates such as PCI DSS and SOX. After suffering a ransomware attack that disrupted operations for over 48 hours, the leadership team recognized the need to enhance their cyber resilience posture with a proactive and tested framework.
Challenges Faced
Key security concerns included:
- Lack of a structured incident response plan, leading to prolonged downtime.
- Unpatched systems and weak network segmentation, allowing lateral movement.
- Low cybersecurity awareness across business units.
- No business continuity strategy linked to cyberattack scenarios.
Solution
COE Security implemented a tailored Cyber Resilience Readiness Program, combining:
- Resilience Assessment: A comprehensive audit of existing controls, gaps, and business continuity alignment.
- IR Playbook Development: Customized, tested plans for ransomware, insider threats, and data leaks.
- Security Hardening: Network segmentation, patch prioritization, and access control enforcement.
- Resilience Training: Executive table-top exercises and company-wide awareness campaigns.
Cyber Resilience in Action
- Conducted full red team-blue team simulation to test real-time response.
- Developed BCP/DR strategies tailored to cyber event impacts.
- Installed network-level EDR and anomaly detection sensors.
- Built a real-time threat dashboard for CISO-level decision making.
- Reduced incident containment time from 6 hours to under 1 hour.
Strategic Governance and Readiness
- Mapped recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) to asset criticality.
- Established cyber resilience KPIs and aligned them with board-level risk appetite.
- Integrated cybersecurity planning into enterprise risk management (ERM).
- Created a resilience steering committee with quarterly simulation drills.
COE Resilience Service Suite
- Cyber Resilience Strategy Design
- Incident Response Plan Development
- Tabletop Exercises & Simulation
- Business Continuity & DR Mapping
- Security Posture Assessment
- Threat Intelligence Integration
- Patch & Vulnerability Management
- Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR)
- Executive Cyber Risk Dashboards
- Regulatory Alignment & Audit Readiness
Implementation Details
- Deployed advanced EDR and XDR tools across endpoints and servers.
- Integrated SIEM and SOAR solutions with existing ticketing systems.
- Conducted multi-role resilience training and phishing simulations.
- Delivered runbooks and playbooks for Tier-1, 2, and 3 threats.
- Generated monthly reports with heatmaps and trend analyses.
Results Achieved
- 99.8% endpoint compliance achieved within 3 months.
- Containment time reduced by 85%, minimizing business disruption.
- Passed external audit with zero major non-conformities.
- Cyber Maturity Score improved from Level 2 to Level 4 (based on NIST CSF).
Client Testimonial
“COE Security transformed our cyber strategy from reactive to resilient. The team’s execution and training gave us confidence to withstand and recover from any future threat – without compromising our operations.”