Cyber threats are rampant, and the businesses have to be constantly alert to the security breach that can happen anytime within their corporate network. There is a need for strong security strategy and threat protection capabilities within the organisation to ensure secure business processes.
DTDC Express, the second largest express distribution company in India, which has a well-spread out technology infrastructure to ensure real-time updates and data, felt the need to bolster its security set up. The company decided to upgrade its existing firewall implementation to segment and control its network.
The need for bolstered security
In fact, the growing business meant the requirement for advanced threat protection capabilities with higher throughput to provide real-time connectivity. The company wanted a solution to provide identity-based access to applications, and support for its end-to-end consignment tracking and tracing of shipments. DTDC’s logistic services include business units such as courier and cargo services, e-commerce delivery, e-fulfilment, surface cargo, retail services, international express distribution services and third party logistics.
“Technology is the backbone that holds together our operational services and we have been investing extensively to ramp up our infrastructure to enable our business expansion. Considering the fluid nature of our business and the range of applications and data flowing across our network, we needed a security solution that would provide us with the visibility to control user access,” explained Anil Kumar K K, Assistant General Manager IT, DTDC Express Ltd
According to Kumar, the company’s IT network has more than 15,000 users logged at every point in time. “This means that device identification and management is critical to provide access based on the type of device, operating system and the IP address connecting to the network,” added Kumar.
DTDC’s new security framework
So DTDC Express bolstered its existing security framework with Fortinet Security Fabric. The company has improved its data centre capabilities and branch firewall across 30 global offices and over 450 branches in India. It has deployed multiple FortiGate enterprise firewalls to secure its datacenter and branches to ensure high availability and better user management.
“Fortinet’s security solutions have been protecting our network for over 12 years now. We have deployed three generations of FortiGate Firewalls that have evolved from a UTM into a comprehensive Security Fabric to protect our network right from the data center to our remote branches and global offices. The FortiGate 3000D Next-Generation Firewall is a very simple-to-manage yet comprehensive security solution that helps us to control access with policies that segregate users based on their roles. A highly secure DNS caching system adds another layer of protection to our network and ensures business continuity,” said Mrinal Chakraborty, Executive VP Technology and Innovation, DTDC Express Ltd, when explaining the upgrade in its security infrastructure.
FortiGate has reduced latency, while the significantly higher throughput has helped DTDC turn on multiple security technologies like intrusion detection, application control, device identification and management etc. without affecting user experience. The internal network segmentation firewall has enabled DTDC Express to create consistent policy and enforcement deep in the network.
With refreshed Fortinet Security Fabric deployment DTDC has been able to secure its network and data center. Today, the company claims to have created a consistent policy and enforcement across its network. The infrastructure now has intrusion prevention and detection, content filtering and web filtering, application control and two-factor authentication to protect its web and mobile based tracking applications. “Massive amounts of data are being collected and correlated in our network environment on a regular basis. It was critical that segmentation controls be established to detect and isolate threats that have managed to penetrate the perimeter of our network. With Fortinet’s high-performance internal firewall, we are able to effectively protect our network from threats moving laterally across our network,” said Kumar.
The Domain Reputation Service in the Security Fabric supplies DTDC Express with a regularly updated list of known, malicious fully qualified domain names. This prevents the DNS servers from reaching known malicious sites, and helps prevent attacks that obfuscate source IPs using hijacked domain names.
Managing the network infrastructure has become easier with single-pane-of-glass control from one console at the head office.
Scalability and future growth
“With Fortinet’s unique Security Fabric architecture and our FortiOS 6.0, DTDC has the option to add 200 new security features and capabilities for continuous risk assessment via automation. That will help deal with the issue of scarce security staff and also to continuously maintain compliance posture,” said Rajesh Maurya, Regional Vice President, India & SAARC, Fortinet. Fortinet Security Fabric allows scalability, and DTDC Express can continue to grow its business and expand operations by securely adding new branches to its network.