clarks case study.pdf

CUSTOMER CASESTUDY

CHECK POINT QUANTUM SECURITY GATEWAYS ENABLE CLARKS TO ELEVATE SECURITY PROTECTION AND MANAGEMENT SIMPLICITY TO NEW LEVELS

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Clarks is a global shoe company that was founded in 1825.

Challenge

Solution

"With Check Point Quantum Network Security, we gained industry-leading protection, better visibility, and we can manage much more of our security services ourselves. We were looking to simplify security—and we've done that while gaining so many additional benefits."

— Dan Fletcher, Network Service Manager

Benefits

Founded by two brothers in 1825, Clarks with £1.5 billion in sales and 1,400 stores worldwide. Clarks invented the world's first foot-shaped shoe. The company continues to innovate with 3D printing, rapid prototyping, and a digital foot gauge. Forty-six million pairs later, Clarks is appealing to customers' sense of style and comfort in 75 countries.

Headquartered in the UK, Clarks supports manufacturing, distribution, and retail sales in the United States, the UK, Europe, and Asia. Until recently, security management had been primarily outsourced. Protection was limited, often due to contractual complexities or resource constraints, making it difficult to realize the full benefit of products in use. Despite numerous protections implemented, there was little visibility into the organization's overall security posture. Initiating security policy changes was burdensome with most of the work falling to the Clarks IT team. When a new IT team joined Clarks, it was clear that change was needed.

Business Challenge

Seeking a Better Fit

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"In addition to adding more robust security functionality, we wanted to simplify management, bring it in-house, and have better visibility into security measures. We already had a great relationship with Check Point, and that made our decision easy."

— Dan Fletcher, Network Service Manager

"We launched a security overhaul," said Dan Fletcher, Network Service Manager for Clarks. "In addition to adding more robust security functionality, we wanted to simplify management, improve our ability to keep pace with a dynamic landscape and have better visibility into security measures. We already had a great relationship with Check Point, and that made our decision easy."

SOLUTION

Powerful Protection Automatically

Clarks based its security refresh on Check Point Quantum Security Gateways. Quantum Network Security provides ultra-scalable protection against Gen V cyber attacks across the enterprise. With powerful firewall, IPS, Anti-Bot, Antivirus, Application Control, and URL Filtering, Clarks' infrastructure immediately gained the industry's best protection against known cyber-attacks and threats. Seven Quantum gateway clusters defend the company's global footprint.

"We use every capability," said Paul Davey, Infrastructure Service Specialist for Clarks. "The URL filtering has been especially useful. It detects and prevents web access security events, and SSL inspection technology scans and secures SSL/TLS encrypted traffic. We were able to eliminate seven internet proxies around the world as a result."

ID awareness capabilities have reduced overhead while simultaneously improving security. Prior to Quantum Security Gateways, the team had to create rules to grant access to specific resources with little control or granularity. Now they can grant access based on identity without opening access to everyone on the VPN.

"We originally planned to use 30 days of professional services for deploying the gateways and revising policies," said Fletcher. "We migrated systems region by region according to our predefined testing plan and even completed the last migration remotely. We only used seven days, which was quite a saving."

"We simply turned on Anti-Bot and Antivirus measures and they do their thing," said Davey. "They automatically block threats with no impact to our business and we’ve seen no false positives. We know everything stopped is truly malicious."

CUSTOMER CASESTUDY

"We use every capability. The URL filtering has been especially useful. It detects and prevents web access security events, and SSL inspection technology scans and secures SSL/TLS encrypted traffic. We are able to eliminate seven internet proxies around the world as a result."

— Paul Davey, Infrastructure Service Specialist

Gateway logs now feed into Clarks' SIEM, giving the security operations team deep visibility. Check Point Compliance continuously examines the gateways, software modules, policies, and configuration settings in real time. Clarks' privacy and compliance teams receive this data, combined with Check Point SmartEvent reporting, to ensure that security measures align with best practices.

Benefits

Capacity Just in Time

Clarks deployed its new security solutions right before the pandemic unfolded. Quantum remote access VPN features made it easy for the team to deliver secure, scalable, and seamless remote access to the corporate networks and resources as people began working from home.

"Prior to the pandemic, our configuration allowed 200 users to access their applications over a VPN," said Davey. "When everyone began working from home, we were able to quickly increase capacity and connect up to 600 concurrent users."

Confidence in Protection

"When we migrated, one of our main policies included 550 security rules," said Fletcher. "We’ve reduced this by around 60% with the same level of service but the simplified policies make future changes easier and clearer. The only impact on the business is having much better protection."

The team has high confidence in the company's protection. Check Point Quantum Security Gateways automatically detect and block port scans. In the past, the team would have had to discover those events in firewall logs and reactively block them. If a user was phished and downloaded software, malicious DNS requests could be sent outbound to a cloud proxy service. Today, Check Point gateways detect and stop malicious DNS requests automatically before they can leave the network.

CloudGuard keeps data in public cloud networks safe from even the most sophisticated attacks. The Check Point team used CloudGuard Network Security to set up a virtual hub in Azure, providing secure connectivity between the data center and cloud. Clarks gained consistent security protection, policy enforcement, and full visibility between the premises and cloud networks.

"Check Point CloudGuard Network secured a new, business-critical cloud solution and simultaneously simplified our infrastructure. Because of that, we could retire a £500,000/year application."

— Dan Fletcher, Network Service Manager

The Clarks team can now secure new cloud-based solutions in minutes as the company continues on its cloud journey. Industry-leading advanced threat protection and single-pane-of-glass management makes it easy for the team to ensure consistent, comprehensive security protections across its estate while keeping pace with dynamic business requirements.

The team also expects savings in endpoint security. Previously, multiple agents were deployed on users' remote and mobile endpoints—one for securing the device and others for SOC team monitoring. Users experienced performance issues and the team received numerous complaints. Clarks chose Check Point Harmony Endpoint for complete endpoint protection and automated attack detection and remediation. Harmony Endpoint handles URL filtering on the endpoint, giving users much better performance while Check Point Zero-Phishing technology identifies and blocks phishing in real time.

"With Check Point Quantum Network Security, we gained industry-leading protection, better visibility, and we can manage much more of our security services ourselves," said Fletcher. "We were looking to simplify security—and we've done that while gaining so many additional benefits."