BeA Group – New IT infrastructure and security measures

BeA Group – New IT infrastructure and security measures after a cyberattack.

BeA GmbH is a global leader in fastening technology. Every day, BeA supplies millions of staples, nails and screws to the furniture production, construction, automotive and pallet industries. In the wake of a cyberattack, Bechtle supported BeA in restoring IT operations and restructuring and securing its IT systems by implementing a future-proof IT infrastructure backed by HPE servers and a new storage system that meets the latest security standards with an extra layer of protection provided by Arctic Wolf® cybersecurity solutions.

Project details.

Services

Data Centre
Security
Managed Services

Industry

Manufacturing

Manufacturer

HPE, Arctic Wolf®

Company size

250 – 1,500 employees

Challenge.

BeA GmbH is a leading supplier of hand-held compressed air and gas-operated staplers and nailers. The company has 450 employees and 14 subsidiaries in more than 40 countries and as a market leader in fastening technology, BeA is the supplier of choice for most tradespeople. The company delivers compressed air and gas-operated tools, fasteners and skater systems to over 35,000 customers around the world, which is why it needs a modern and flexible IT infrastructure to keep up with the ever-changing demands of the global market. After suffering a cyberattack, BeA’s IT systems not only needed to be purged, but also made fit for the future. With new IT components, BeA wanted to ensure its data’s security as well as boost in-house process efficiency. To this end, a rugged and secure infrastructure was needed to allow fast access to data, minimise downtime and optimise communications within the company as well as with international customers and partners. When the breach was detected, BeA GmbH coordinated with its IT service provider, Bechtle, to shut down its entire network communications to contain the damage. The next step was then to backup and remediate the data and build a new, hardened IT landscape for a fresh IT environment.

Bechtle’s fast response and approach was simply outstanding. It was incredibly important to get our IT up and running again and thanks to Bechtle’s prompt and professional support, we are now ready for whatever the future holds.

Tobias Biermann, Head of IT, BeA GmbH

Solution.

Bechtle quickly seized the initiative after the attack to restore BeA’s IT infrastructure before starting work on securing it for the future. A five-strong team left a company event and headed to BeA with replacement hardware to set up an on-site crisis team within a matter of hours. A new storage system was used to restore the remaining, uncompromised data from older tape backups with an HPE EsX server providing an emergency environment. With these in place, Bechtle was able to recover some 90 per cent of the systems. The temporary network environment complete with recovered systems was intensively scanned and verified again—from the e-mail accounts to rights management—before going live, but to make absolutely sure that no compromised data or systems were copied to the new hardened infrastructure, Bechtle configured a completely new IT environment in parallel. To do so, the IT service provider installed two new HPE DL380 Gen11 servers in physically separate data centres to ensure the utmost reliability. Furthermore, a new server and core switches for both data centres were implemented, and Bechtle rolled out advanced security solutions including a multi-layer security concept to segment and protect all areas of the network. Arctic Wolf® Cybersecurity solutions monitor the network 24/7 from user devices to the cloud environment, while Arctic Wolf® Managed Detection and Response (MDR) keeps an eye on Microsoft 365, as well as all BeA’s endpoints, networks, switches and firewalls, analysing the logs and information within the corporate network. This not only enables the system to automatically detect sophisticated cyberattacks, but thanks to Arctic Wolf® Managed Risk it can also contextualise all possible attack surfaces. Arctic Wolf® offers this in the form of a concierge service available to BeA around the clock. Defence is further boosted through Arctic Wolf® Managed Security Awareness, which BeA uses to regularly train its employees to identify attacks and human error and neutralise threats. Bechtle also migrated BeA’s e-mail system to Microsoft Exchange Online, not only to restore in-house communications as quickly as possible, but to provide a future-proof solution and smooth the way into the cloud. BeA now has a predominantly on-prem solution with Microsoft Office 365 services used and secured in the cloud. What’s more, additional perimeter, identity and access security measures and tools were implemented over the course of the project.

Business benefits.

Together with Bechtle, BeA was in a position to get its business operations back up and running fast after the cyberattack and now benefits from a future-proof IT infrastructure. The new server and storage landscape has given BeA a powerful and reliable foundation with fast data access and high availability, while new firewalls, a multi-layer security concept and Arctic Wolf® cybersecurity solutions ensure optimum protection. In addition, Microsoft Exchange Online has made communication more flexible and secure. Bechtle’s prompt response coupled with extensive testing and optimisations ensured BeA was not only able to overcome the incident, but to come out stronger as a result. Its new IT infrastructure allows employees in Germany, Spain, the USA, Australia and beyond to work securely and efficiently.