Mexican Bank Enhances Security to Better Safeguard

Customer Assets and Information

Banregio Gains Advanced Zero Day Threat Prevention and Unified Security Management with Check Point

INDUSTRY
Finance/Banking

HEADQUARTERS
Mexico

COMPANY SIZE
1,001-5,000 employees

OVERVIEW

The Banregio Grupo Financiero S.A.B. de C.V., trading as Banregio, is one of Mexico’s leading regional banks, founded in 1994. Today, it has over 3,000 employees working at 133 branches across Mexico. In addition to consumer banking, it specializes in services for small and medium-sized enterprises. Banregio has been listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange since 2011.

OUR SOLUTION

CHALLENGE

Mexico’s financial sector has grown rapidly in recent years, attracting the attention of cyber criminals as a result. As a leading financial institution critical to regional enterprise in Mexico, Banregio was experiencing an increase in cyber attacks.

We decided to install this version of security management primarily to ensure our strategy was centralized, simpler, and allowed more effective decision-making. Check Point Security Management significantly improved the presentation of information.
Víctor Oziel Martínez Vázquez, Chief Security Officer, Banregio

“There are currently many security threats in the world. In Mexico, we are starting to see more incidents, and this motivates us to work harder to protect our customers’ information and the assets we hold for them. This is of great concern to us, to the general management, and to the bank as a whole,” explains Victor Oziel Martinez Vázquez, Chief Security Officer, Banregio.

The bank must protect its assets (data, finances, and corporate reputation) and those of its customers – for example, it holds many citizens’ inherited family wealth – and it must do so effectively and efficiently. The in-house security team struggled to deal with increasingly sophisticated and advanced attacks.

The bank wanted to strengthen its network security by identifying and blocking new and advanced threats more effectively. It also wanted to centralize the security management of the entire threat landscape, including PCs and mobile devices, software, and data, on the cloud, simplifying administration and proactively preventing cyber attacks.

SOLUTION

Banregio uses a range of security solutions, but the central piece of its approach is based on our Zero Day Threat Prevention for Quantum. This protects the Banregio data center network, where all customer data is held, and all financial transactions are processed.

“Protection based on signatures has become obsolete, and we were looking for a new-generation solution that could identify threats, advanced or behavioral,” Víctor Oziel Martínez Vázquez explains. “Essentially, this is what motivated us to choose Zero Day Threat Prevention for Quantum.”

Zero Day Threat Prevention protects against advanced and zero day cyber threats, preventing attacks, minimizing risks, and offering rapid response. Its threat extraction feature ensures files are automatically cleaned and potentially malicious content removed before they enter the network.

“This technology, Zero Day Threat Prevention for Quantum, allows us to ‘sanitize’ or clean any threats present in documents and provide information to our users without any risks or threats,” explains Vasquez. “It has worked really well.”

This technology, Zero Day Threat Prevention for Quantum, allows us to ‘sanitize’ or clean any threats present in documents and provide information to our users without any risks or threats. It has worked really well.
Víctor Oziel Martínez Vázquez, Chief Security Officer, Banregio

Insights for Improved Decision-making

Banregio also uses Check Point support to identify technical and operational best practices and upskill the in-house security team.

Security management is provided through Check Point Security Management software, giving the bank’s IT team a view of the entire security landscape through a single management console. This allows multiple administrators to view and prevent potential cyber attacks in real time, update policies, and turn on automated responses in response to specific threats.

“We decided to install this version of security management primarily to ensure our strategy was centralized, simpler and allowed for more effective decision-making. Check Point Security Management software also significantly improved the presentation of information,” explains Víctor Oziel Martínez Vázquez.

OUTCOME

Since installing Zero Day Threat Prevention for Quantum, the bank has seen a marked improvement in threat prevention, giving the security team peace of mind that customer data is safeguarded from cyber attacks.

“Check Point has fully lived up to its promise,” says Víctor Oziel Martínez Vázquez, “the bank has yet to be impacted by a security breach, and the result is greater assurance around the security of financial transactions and customer data.”

Making Threats More Visible

Using Check Point Security Management software to correlate events with the bank’s security center, he says, has resulted in better decision making and implementing a more effective strategy for dealing with threats.

“Check Point significantly improves the presentation of threats. We’ve made great use of the console,” continues Victor Oziel Martinez Vázquez.

“Compared to other technologies, Check Point has shown itself to be user-friendly, intuitive, easy to implement, and adapts extremely well to different architectures, specifically ours. In our technology architecture, the implementation of Check Point was extremely transparent and fast.”

It has been the differentiating factor among the solutions we’ve used. Check Point fully lives up to its promises.
Víctor Oziel Martínez Vázquez, Chief Security Officer, Banregio

“It has been the differentiating factor among the solutions we’ve used. Check Point fully lives up to its promises. Obviously, it’s also part of the management of the bank’s processes and ensuring they are fully met, but so far, it has provided excellent results,” concludes Víctor Oziel Martínez Vázquez.

ABOUT CHECK POINT

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. is a leading AI-powered, cloud-delivered cyber security platform provider protecting over 100,000 organizations worldwide. Check Point leverages the power of A.I. everywhere to enhance cyber security efficiency and accuracy through its Infinity Platform, with industry-leading catch rates enabling proactive threat anticipation and smarter, faster response times. The comprehensive platform includes cloud-delivered technologies consisting of Check Point Harmony to secure the workspace, Check Point CloudGuard to secure the cloud, Check Point Quantum to secure the network, and Check Point Infinity Platform Services for collaborative security operations and services.