IT security Infor effortlessly shakes off cybercriminals with Ontinue

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Infor HT, a globally active company in biotechnology, masters the challenge of cybersecurity by using Ontinue's MXDR service. This ensures Infor's IT infrastructure is secure around the clock while simultaneously relieving the internal team.

For almost 60 years, Infors HT has been developing and producing high-tech solutions for biotechnology. The portfolio includes bioreactors, shaker incubators, and the appropriate software for controlling bioprocesses. The family-run company, now a public limited company, has locations in numerous countries in North America, Asia, and Europe. The headquarters is in Bottmingen, Switzerland. A special feature of the company is its employee—and customer-oriented approach. Flat hierarchies create a pleasant atmosphere where innovation and optimization suggestions are welcomed. Moreover, many scientists at Infors HT come from the operational research field: the traditional company not only employs engineers who know how to build valves, but also people who know exactly what customers need and what problems they must solve.

What has drastically changed at Infors HT since its founding in 1965 is the digital infrastructure. Over the years, the maturity level of IT has steadily increased—and so has its complexity. Today, about 90 percent of the IT infrastructure is in the cloud, while application software relies entirely on Microsoft technologies. As a globally operating company, it goes without saying that Infors HT has connected its locations worldwide with a very extensive WAN infrastructure. "We are a family business, and you can tell by the way we treat each other," emphasizes René Schröder, the main person responsible for IT security. "And, of course, I want to protect my company like I would my family—in this case from cyberattacks like hacking or phishing attacks."

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To turn this intention into action, Infors HT's IT team set up a small Micro Security Operations Center that handled the alerts and incidents from Microsoft's Defender and Sentinel tools. "Unfortunately, we quickly realized that we couldn't process all the incoming alerts. Eventually, we focused solely on the high alerts and tried to automate the smaller warnings," Schröder continued. "Honestly, we lacked the know-how to fully utilize the tools available to us." What Infors HT definitely needed were real cybersecurity specialists who had specifically furthered their expertise in this area. Handling it themselves and building the full scope of expertise was not an option due to the IT department's workload. Therefore, hiring a provider for Managed Extended Detection and Response (MXDR) seemed the only sensible way to go.

MXDR services are neither too expensive nor pointless for small and medium-sized enterprises—on the contrary: they are exactly what they need to adequately secure their IT infrastructure without having massive budgets.

René Schröder, Head of IT Security, Infors HT

A seamless security package

When searching for the right provider, one point was absolutely essential: they had to have excellent knowledge of Microsoft technology, as Infors HT has been completely relying on Microsoft for years, both on the client and cloud side and, of course, in terms of security technology. "It was particularly important to us that our security partner does not work against the manufacturer of our security software. Many MXDR service providers use their own tools that override or interfere with the work of the natively used ones. Additionally, we didn't want more complexity but rather a seamless all-in-one package," Schröder explains the key elements for the evaluation process.

"We then looked at some companies and listened to presentations, but most of them either didn't understand or only rudimentarily used Sentinel and the Defender suite. Ontinue, on the other hand, convinced us with its Microsoft expertise," Schröder continued. Additionally, the IT security leader noted that Infors HT has relied on Open Systems for network management and security for years, which is the provider from which Ontinue originated. He also praised the good communication despite the highly technical topics, which continues with Ontinue, saying: "We always had contacts and Cyber Advisors at Ontinue who immediately knew what we needed, what we meant, and how we could overcome the hurdles that inevitably arise when working with external service providers."

Not too expensive and absolutely sensible

With Ontinue's MXDR service Ion, Infors HT has freed itself from having to personally investigate all security events and incidents—many are directly intercepted by Ontinue's Security Operations Center (SOC), so that only one in a hundred thousand events is escalated to Infors HT. This frees up resources for René Schröder and his colleagues, which they use to manage infrastructure, resolve organizational matters, and conduct internal audits. It is also reassuring for René Schröder and his team to know that the IT infrastructure is adequately monitored after hours and on all days of the week. Anomalies and cyberattacks are detected immediately, leaving attackers much less time before necessary countermeasures are taken.

Communication between René Schröder, his team, and Ontinue takes place through the shared channel in Microsoft Teams, making the coordination between cyber defenders, cyber advisors, and internal security experts seamless. The security professionals from the MXDR partner Ontinue integrate so well into the in-house IT team that it feels like they are part of the company. "This way, we can better involve our own first-level supporters in the security processes," Schröder explains. "They can directly ask Ontinue's cyber defenders and cyber advisors via Teams what recommendations they have for specific incidents. They usually respond immediately and already have suggestions on how we should react. This is particularly important because, in the USA, a completely different time zone, we don't have IT administrators, only first-level support." For the corresponding processes, escalation matrices were created at the start of the collaboration, defining access permissions, responsibilities, and contacts at all critical points.

The experts from Ontinue and Infors HT have now grown into a unified Security Operations Center. René Schröder quantifies the increase in security performance based on the recommendations of the Federal Office for Information Security and the Swiss ICT standard as follows: "We have come about 50 percent closer to a secure IT infrastructure. This demonstrates once again that MXDR services are neither too expensive nor pointless for small and medium-sized enterprises—on the contrary: they are a really good thing, and SMEs in particular should not cut corners when it comes to their security."