Legal

Evolving the security roadmap

Sink Injury Lawyer’s commitment to its clients goes beyond legal excellence. “We work hard to help our clients, and we’re also extremely serious about keeping their data secure,” says Timothy Mullen, Director of IT.

To protect client data, Mullen adopts best-of-breed security technologies and a defense in depth approach. “Our offices connect over a secure SD-WAN fabric, and we enforce encryption and least privilege–based access. Our priority, however, is to ensure security is transparent and doesn’t slow down the users,” Mullen remarks.

This commitment requires a high level of security integration. Mullen’s team relied on Cisco tools to secure its endpoints and networks. Cisco SecureX provided individual siloed access to each tool. “We didn’t use the orchestration and automation features of SecureX,” says Mullen. “Even though SecureX gave some degree of integration, we individually accessed each tool to manually correlate the data.”

Adopting platform-centric security

For Mullen, Cisco XDR provided a seamless evolution to overcome the inefficiencies of manual processes. “SecureX was a fantastic stepping stone that led us to the full integration that Cisco XDR offered,” Mullen remarks. “Cisco XDR offered native integration of the entire family of products, and we could use the platform almost right out-of-the-box.”

Cisco XDR unifies diverse security data streams into an integrated platform, empowering the firm to detect, analyze, and respond to threats across their entire security ecosystem. “Cisco XDR is about way more than a single pane of glass,” says Mullen. “XDR helped me consume telemetry data and correlate different data together in a single cohesive dashboard. I could instantly sense there was a development effort underway.” The dashboard not only consolidates information but also provides actionable insights, revealing patterns and potential threats that might otherwise go unnoticed.

The immediate availability of native integration also allowed secure integration of all the email flows to Cisco XDR. “Being able to correlate email events back to the endpoint which might have been compromised, and to do so without requiring me to access the mail server or the email client, is simply phenomenal,” explains Mullen.

The ability to automatically link email incidents with endpoint activities not only enhances threat detection but also reduces investigation time, allowing the security team to focus on critical issues rather than manual workflows. This integrated approach provides valuable context for each security event, enabling more informed decision-making and targeted remediation efforts.

Transformative enhancements in security operations

By taking advantage of Cisco XDR, the firm has transformed the way it responds to threats. “Cisco XDR gave my team access to professional resources that only large businesses can afford,” Mullen explains. “With XDR, we have the visibility to fully vet and respond to incidents that we didn't necessarily have time to investigate before.”

Cisco XDR has also streamlined the incident response process. Mullen says, “Our response to incidents is immediate and we can ensure any ancillary exposures are also handled. Visualizing other potentially exposed systems at a glance and drilling into them to quarantine is pretty amazing. And because Cisco XDR allows bi-directional assignment, I know I can just assign work and close tickets directly in XDR.”

The implementation of Cisco XDR has not only enhanced the firm’s security posture but also improved its operational efficiency. By leveraging advanced analytics and automation capabilities, the security team can proactively identify and mitigate threats before they escalate.

Mullen concludes, “Cisco XDR puts us on par with professional organizations that have dedicated incident response at a fraction of the cost. We now have a better way of protecting data and servicing our clients.”