Oerlemans Plastics chose Sophos's managed detection & response (MDR) solution, with Acknowledge as its implementation partner.
“When you ask a question, you get an answer right away. That builds trust.”
Kristian SegersOerlemans Plastics develops flexible plastic packaging and film for customers worldwide. They offer products and packaging solutions for the food, non-food, and horticulture sectors, among others. Together with six other companies, Oerlemans Plastics is part of the OPACKGROUP, one of Europe’s leaders in the development of sustainable and innovative films and packaging. Each entity has its own IT department but faces similar security challenges. “It’s quite a task to establish a new security framework and policy for all these separate companies. That’s why we were looking for a provider that offers a turnkey solution covering the entire current security spectrum,” says Kristian Segers, IT at Oerlemans Plastics. After thorough research, they settled on Sophos. With their comprehensive managed detection and response (MDR) services, Sophos provides round-the-clock monitoring against cyber threats.
Security Operations Center
Integrating the various features of Sophos’s MDR solution required an experienced IT. Kristian explains: “The Sophos components had to be integrated with all parts of our business. For a small IT like ours, that’s simply not feasible. So we asked our regular IT service provider, Acknowledge, to help us with this.” Sophos has been our partner for years, and we’re familiar with their offering. Acknowledge works closely with Sophos’s Security Operations Center (SOC). This is a team of specialists who proactively respond to alerts using advanced tools and data.
From Technology to Business
The project began by mapping out the existing infrastructure. How is it currently set up, and what needs to change? “A major change like this is a good opportunity to make adjustments,” says Kristian. “We sat down with the engineers at Acknowledge to discuss the basic configuration offered by Sophos. They have the technical expertise regarding the capabilities, and we know our business. We found that we complemented each other well in that regard.” Next, the underlying rules were fine-tuned. What do you want to enable, how should it be configured, what are end users allowed to do and what aren’t they allowed to do, and what do you want to filter out?
Sophos NDR
Oerlemans Plastics uses MDR for its servers, firewalls, and endpoints. The foundation is Sophos Central, supplemented by various integrations with, among others, Office 365 and Azure, Sophos Email Security, and Sophos Network Detection & Response (NDR). “With Sophos NDR, a copy of the network traffic is sent to a virtual appliance via port mirroring. This appliance collects the traffic and then forwards it to Sophos MDR. Sophos MDR analyzes and monitors the traffic for suspicious activity. The Sophos XGS firewall is linked to Sophos Central, so that this traffic can also be analyzed,” explains Bas van Meurs, technical consultant at Acknowledge.
Implementation of the Sophos MDR solution across the entire IT.
Collaboration based on technical expertise and alignment with the business.
Continuous monitoring, proactive detection, and rapid incident response.
Trust
It was quite a challenge to create a central location where all the data from all OPACKGROUP entities could be consolidated. Furthermore, the infrastructure was set up differently at each company. Bas: “For example, some locations didn’t use a VMware distributed vSwitch, which meant we had to configure the NDR devices differently to still capture all the traffic.” By acting quickly and making swift decisions, the MDR solution was successfully implemented. “Bas is Sophos-certified and knows what he’s talking about. If you ask him something, he knows the answer right away. That inspires confidence,” says Kristian.
A good night's sleep
Sometimes, plans devised during the planning phase don’t turn out to align with reality. “Acknowledge played a key role in that. We didn’t run into any major setbacks or surprises. And Sophos was capable of more than we thought,” says Kristian. “Thanks to 24/7 monitoring from around the world, I can now sleep soundly. We have a much better understanding of our environment, and it’s constantly being monitored. If any suspicious activity occurs, I can reach Sophos immediately. And that’s far more than we can manage during our workday.” Kristian therefore gives the collaboration and the project a solid eight out of ten!
