Gemini Polska and enhanced security with SOC 24/7 monitoring
Deployment date: 2023
Sector: pharmaceutics
Microsoft
Considering the growing number of cyber attacks and related mitigating measures that placed ever-increasing pressure on the daily operations of its IT team, Gemini Polska decided to boost security mechanisms. The company, which had previously used both on-premise and public cloud solutions, followed OChK’s recommendation and opted for a 24/7 SOC as a Service based on Microsoft technology. Gemini Polska’s ongoing cooperation with OChK ensured a higher level of security and allowed the company to optimize costs. At the same time, the new developments provided significant relief to the IT team in terms of security monitoring and enabled them to focus on achieving other business goals.
About Gemini Polska
Gemini Polska is a leader in promoting pharmaceutical care whose history dates back to the opening of the company’s first brick-and-mortar pharmacy in Wejherowo in 1990. Since then, the company has opened more than 300 pharmacies across Polska. Today, however, the Gemini brand includes much more than pharmacies. The company develops digital solutions to support patients in the health care system, and runs one of the most popular health-related platforms, gemini.pl. Patient care has always been at the heart of Gemini’s operations. Gemini Polska’s top experts, namely pharmacists and a multidisciplinary team of specialists, combine their expertise to deliver pharmaceutical services and to excel in meeting the needs of patients, including the protection of their data. Patient security is a top priority for Gemini Polska.
Challenges
Cybersecurity support – like many market players, Gemini Polska has seen an increase in attempted cyber attacks, prompting the IT team to take steps to strengthen IT infrastructure protection. With its broad responsibilities and limited resources, the Security Department needed additional support in monitoring, detecting, and preventing threats. A key challenge was to expand the security system so as to optimize the number of tasks for the IT team.
Dynamic growth and the need to optimize costs – the vigorous growth of Gemini Polska’s operations and those of other companies in the group, in remote channels in particular, also required an upgrade of the existing solutions. The cost of managing the cloud IT environment was on the rise, and the level of control over the ever-more extensive infrastructure was not satisfactory enough to ensure comfort and business continuity.
It has become a priority for Gemini Polska to strengthen the organization’s security level and introduce improvements that do not put additional pressure on the IT team, while providing a higher level of infrastructure protection and better cost management. In order to achieve these goals, the company turned to OChK experts for help. As a result, the company implemented SOC as a Service, which will support the organization in monitoring the environment and responding effectively to threats over the long term.
Solution and implementation
The cooperation began with a workshop, during which the OChK team familiarized itself with the scope of Gemini Polska's infrastructure and applications scheduled for monitoring.
Gemini Polska was already using cloud solutions, therefore, following the analysis of the company’s needs and resources, OChK experts proposed a high-level architecture and two Microsoft services that enable the monitoring of infrastructure and key servers on a 24/7 basis:
Microsoft Sentinel – a SIEM solution that allows to identify threats in the IT environment and take actions according to a predefined scenario,
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – a security platform for preventing, detecting, investigating, and responding to advanced threats.
The OChK team started providing SOC as a Service, that enabled the experts to monitor Gemini Polska’s IT environment, including both on-premise and cloud infrastructure (AWS and Azure), on a 24/7 basis. When a potential threat is detected, a team of operators and analysts take the appropriate steps according to a predefined response scenario.
In order to ensure an adequate level of security for the organization, the OChK team is developing the SOC service. They hold periodic meetings to analyze and continuously adapt the identified detection rules and instructions to the changing circumstances of business operations. In the course of cooperation, Gemini Polska team also indicated its key servers for additional protection, based on advanced cloud solutions.
Technologies used
Microsoft Sentinel
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
Results
With the new tools and 24/7 monitoring by OChK’s specialized SOC team, Gemini Polska’s level of security, including that of its confidential and sensitive data, was significantly strengthened.
Gemini Polska’s IT team can now focus fully on their internal tasks and on achieving core business goals, and spend significantly less time on security issues. Should any previously identified risks occur, OChK notifies the company of the threats.
Cyclical meetings, during which the OChK team shares the knowledge and recommendations for further improvements, as well as close cooperation with the Gemini Polska team, allow the service to develop and nimbly adapt to the changing needs of the organization.
Strengthened security also translates into ensuring the organization’s business continuity, as it protects the company’s resources and data.
The implementation of SOC as a Service allowed the organization to optimize its costs – Gemini Polska team did not have to appoint, maintain, and train its own department for monitoring and responding to detected threats.
Data security is a top priority for Gemini. It is inefficient to appoint an SOC team internally in an organization of this scale, so having a reliable and flexible partner such as OChK makes profound sense. It is also a very good way to strengthen the competencies of our internal team by working together closely on the implementation of the SOC service and other joint projects.
Patryk Dolewa
Chief Technology and Business Transformation Officer, Gemini Polska
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