Fortifying Cybersecurity: How Movate Transformed its Security Landscape with Palo Alto Networks Solutions

Movate is a global customer experience, support, and technology consulting services provider for major OEMs, with industry-leading proprietary solutions. The company has a diverse team of customer-centric thinkers, collaborators, and co-creators across 20 global locations.

Movate needed to ensure that they had a very strong cybersecurity posture. It was facing multiple challenges such as legacy and dispersed security tools with limited integration, restricted network visibility, long threat detection and response time, and a reactive approach to cybersecurity. They needed next-generation security tools that are application-aware, can prevent threats, use threat intel feeds, conduct behaviour analysis, can be monitored through centralized management, fit into the Zero Trust approach, and reduce detection and response time.

Movate chose Palo Alto Networks’ Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs), Cloud-Delivered Security Services (Threat Prevention and WildFire), Panorama, and Cortex XDR for a more proactive and data-driven analytical.

CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Huzefa Motiwala, Director for Systems Engineering, India and SAARC at Palo Alto Networks, and Mushtaq Ahmad, Chief Information Officer at Movate to share more insights on the same.

What were the pain points/business requirements from a security standpoint for Movate?

Huzefa: Movate faced operational challenges using multiple traditional security products, including firewalls, antivirus tools, and intrusion detection systems (IDS). Managing separate systems led to slower detection and response times, highlighting the need for a consolidated security solution. The pain points can be summarised as:

Inadequate Security Posture: Movate recognized their existing security solutions, including legacy firewalls and traditional antivirus tools, were not sufficient to handle advanced cybersecurity threats, prompting the need for an enhanced, proactive security posture.

Insufficient Threat Detection and Prevention: Siloed IDS offered limited threat prevention, detection, and protection, while filtering measures were insufficient.

Endpoint Security Challenges: Traditional methods like corporate VPNs proved ineffective in securing endpoints, causing subpar user experience, resource overload, and limited cloud service adoption.

Consolidation and Integration: Using multiple security products led to fragmented systems, integration challenges, and slower threat detection and response.

What was the threat landscape like for Movate before implementation? 

Huzefa: At the peak of the pandemic, Movate recognized the need to secure every endpoint, especially with the increase in work-from-home (WFH). They realized the legacy firewalls were insufficient to deal with advanced cybersecurity threats leading to a weak cybersecurity posture. Traditional antivirus software was not enough to ensure watertight endpoint security.

They required analytics-driven detection to thwart sophisticated attacks, which was possible through user and entity behavior analysis (UEBA). UEBA is a solution that discovers threats by identifying activities that deviate from a baseline. It is used to monitor and detect unusual traffic patterns, unauthorised data access, movement, or suspicious endpoint activity.

Can you share more details about the implementation phases?

Huzefa: Automated detection and response were key to ensuring safer cybersecurity outcomes for Movate. They also required analytics-driven detection to block advanced threats. It was hard to gauge whether the network was 100% visible. NGFW, Panorama, and Cortex XDR increased network visibility and helped implement a Zero Trust approach while letting Movate migrate to a centrally managed solution.

The implementation process, encompassing transition, migration, and deployment, was executed over eight months. Panorama, the centralized management solution, streamlined operations, and Cortex XDR demonstrated exceptional performance, seamlessly integrating into the existing infrastructure with no disruption. The migration followed a phased approach, encompassing detection, identification, and prevention, accomplished within one month.

What was the selection criteria for the solution? Why was Palo Alto Networks Movate’s partner of choice? 

Mushtaq: Before deploying Palo Alto Networks’ solutions, we used 16–18 traditional security products, including multiple firewalls, filtering systems, antivirus tools, and endpoint protection. Signature-based antivirus tools worked when we had 5,000–6,000 employees but not with over 11,700.

We required agile and integrated cloud-delivered security services that would be application-aware and reduce the mean time to detect (MTTD) and respond (MTTR). We are a company looking to drive customer success through automation-led outcomes and wanted the same with our security stack. After an extensive evaluation of all leading cybersecurity vendors, we opted for Palo Alto Networks’ NGFWs, Panorama, and Cortex XDR, which gave us 100% visibility into our distributed network and helped simplify configurations.

Palo Alto Networks pedigree as a credible cybersecurity provider also played a part in our selection process. They possess one of the largest cybersecurity data lakes, inspiring confidence within us that should a breach occur elsewhere, their cloud-delivered security services will keep us secure.

How has your security and tech stack evolved since onboarding Palo Alto Networks? Is there considerable future proofing? 

Mushtaq: Implementing NGFWs, Panorama, and Cortex XDR has provided us with advanced technology capabilities, enabling the detection and prevention of sophisticated attacks that weren’t possible with legacy solutions. We have also implemented Cloud-Delivered Security Services (CDSS), including WildFire, for real-time malware detection and Threat Prevention.

Cortex XDR has allowed us to gather alerts from various systems to detect attack patterns. Palo Alto Networks have been flexible in service, and response, offering a compelling roadmap that aligns with our strategy. We have experienced improved security posture, resource optimization, and increased visibility. We are now well-equipped to stay ahead of evolving cyber threats and respond effectively.

What are the post-implementation benefits? How is the solution helping Movate?

Mushtaq: Changing vendors can be daunting, but with Panorama, we simplified transition and deployment over 8 months. The implementation of Cortex XDR was seamless, with 0 downtime. By splitting migration into 3 phases – detection, identification, and prevention – it was completed within a month. Palo Alto Networks helped us adopt a Zero Trust strategy roadmap. The initial investment was high, but the recurring costs were low. We have broken even regarding return on investment as the solution has resulted in resource optimization and overall productivity. We have cut resource spend by 38-40%, while enhancing visibility by 60–70%.

Through Panorama, we have gained insight into network-wide traffic and simplified configurations. Cortex XDR has helped us achieve enterprise-wide protection by scanning for sophisticated attacks or threats across touchpoints. We are now able to secure our remote workers and their distributed endpoints.