ESET Customer Success Story – Leading Financial Institution in Ghana

With over 120 branches across Ghana, this leading financial institution serves a diverse customer base both – business to business (B2B) and business to customers (B2C) market segment.

Banks and Financial institutions have long been a major target for cybercriminals globally. In addition to the security breaches and leaks that threaten these organisations daily, the system downtime required to address issues can result in financial losses, loss of data and damage to the company’s reputation. With growing concerns around these threats, the Financial Institution needed to reexamine its approach to cybersecurity.

Overview of the Client

• Industry Type – B2B and B2C
• Sector – Banking and Finance
• Company Size – Over 4000 employees
• Revenue and Market Share – top 100 companies in Ghana
• Areas of Specialty – International Money Transfer Services, Overdraft Facilities, Trade Finance, Internet and Mobile Banking Services and SME / Business Loans
• Years of Business Experience – Over 30 year

The Situation

The bank found Software solutions with update issues a challenge and therefore took more time for updates to be downloaded. In addition, the I.T team recognised that the security solutions across the bank’s entire network were overly complex and not fit for purpose.

The Problem

The Bank found that ineffective update downloads, which took forever caused their nodes to be prone to vulnerabilities. This posed a potentially dangerous and costly problem if a breach or data leak occurred to the organisation.

In addition, the bank’s I.T team had to be in a constant firefighting mode as several computers across the branches were constantly exposed to malicious viruses. With its limited internal I.T security resources, the Bank required support for its existing security solution but discovered that other vendors could not provide the local support they needed and therefore called on our (Citsys) expertise.

Lastly, there was difficulty with Bandwidth. The Bandwidth Issues were a result of the bank having large multi-branch offices and the size of the updates across the wide-area network. This meant expensive wide area network links were being used for antivirus updates instead of such budget (money) being put into effective operational use for the bank.

Solution

To address its security challenges, Citsys Limited proactively engaged with the bank’s I.T. team and professionally advised the Bank to choose and implement – ESET End Point Protection Advance. Our decision on Eset solution was because the solution meet the banks’ criteria and requirements and were able to address its security problems.

We considered this technology solution because ESET End Point Protection Advance addressed all their critical pain points such as bandwidth issues, effective resource utilisation, and the ease of management across their entire network in Ghana. This, therefore, solved their critical pain points.

Also, it provided the benefits of protecting from Zero-Day Attacks and also previously unseen malware. In addition, it also gave them greater value – in terms of cost of products, overall feature sets, and also support for the ESET solution.

How was ESET Antivirus Solution implemented for the Bank?

The following was the standard operating procedure undertaken by Citsys technical team to see the smooth implementation for our client:

1. Citsys Tech team and OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) engaged with the banks I.T Technical team to scope out the projects, have a deep understanding of their network and how information flowed on the network

2. We then did a pilot test with a few computers across various departments and proceeded with a phased rollout, starting from a branch by branch approach across Ghana.

3. We concurrently also trained the banks I.T technical team, who were capable of providing level 1 support internally to employees.

Results

1. Employees of the bank noticed that their systems/computers did run much faster as ESET wasn’t a resource hog compared to the past.

2. ESET has a very light footprint on installed systems and this results in performance improvements when you switch from other Antivirus (AV) products that require a lot of processing power to be operationally efficient.

3. I.T managers also had a better view on reporting – in terms of delivery and accuracy. Thus, a better insight from a single window. For example, a dashboard view that provided them with comprehensive information from a single touch point.

How did ESET Solution roll-out make your client (Bank) feel?

A very happy and satisfied client – as this proves that the bank has been with Citsys and the ESET technology solution for 6+ years and over the period we have both grown together as trusted partners.

What were the challenges or milestones along the way?

The following has been some of the milestones we did achieve for the bank:

1. Over the past 6 years of usage, the client (bank) has encountered only a few malware attacks on their end point security systems.

2. Security features of ESET also provide critical information on vulnerabilities in the operating systems of host end points and this results in reducing the attack surface

3. Ease of Deployment: when new machines are added to the network of the bank – ESET made it possible and easy to deploy ESET security software’s to the clients’ banking system with no issues.

4. ESET Dynamic Groups: this benefited the bank by making it easier for administrators to move devices/users to different departments without having to reconfigure policies to suit the new department.

Customer Quote

“When we call for support, we have a response within hours. ESET has been part of our network for 6 years and we find them to be the best value.”

In Conclusion

Electronic Security is important for everyone. However, in financial services it’s even critical as billions of cedis (dollars) are moving electronically daily. Thus, the need for greater security and quality efficient support can’t be over-emphasised.

At Citsys, we provide quality solutions and great technical support for our clients/customers and the biggest testimonial is the fact that – 100% of our customers would recommend our solutions and services and more than 95% have been loyal returning customers as well.