How Vodafone helped this internet-based enterprise secure its operations

The evolution of cyberattacks and cybercrime is closely knit with the evolution of the digital age, with the first virus developed in 1971.

Since then, hackers have been finding new and sophisticated ways to penetrate networks and execute codes that target a system's network, and even endpoint devices.

The consequences of a data breach include data thefts, regulatory fines, and loss of customer confidence. According to a report by IBM, organisations on average faced Rs 12.8 crore in losses between July 2018 and April 2019 from cyberattacks and data breaches. Globally, the average cost of data breaches in that period was Rs 27 crore.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic business operations have seen increased vulnerability given the explosion of remote working. According to a report by Kaspersky in May, Indian companies saw a 37 percent increase in cyberattacks in Q1 2020, as compared to Q4 2019.

Securing operations with the right solutions

CRIZAC, a company which facilitates overseas education by assisting students with the complete admission procedure to various universities recently fell prey to a cyberattack.

CRIZAC initially had an in-house server for running their applications. However, due to a ransomware attack, it was not able to access the server, which meant CRIZAC suffered from loss of productivity, revenue and connectivity.

After trying out a server solution with unsatisfactory results, the company approached Vodafone during a capability presentation. The team at Vodafone observed the challenges faced by CRIZAC in using an in-house server such as continual maintenance, downtime issues and external threats because of operating on public networks.

After assessing its requirements, the team proposed the Vodafone Cloud Solution along with the necessary server and antivirus configuration. The solution enables users like CRIZAC to successfully embark on a digital transformation journey powered by technologies such as cloud services that are scalable on demand, colocation, managed security services, managed cloud services and other security bundled options that are tailored to suit the needs of enterprises like Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

With access to one million square feet of tier-4 data centre space in partnership with a leading data center provider, the solution’s service level agreements (SLA) offer a guarantee of 99.995 percent uptime for its data centers, some of the highest in the industry. It also has a global, domestic footprint for extended connectivity, and an eight-zone security ensuring that data of its customers remains secure at all times.

Vodafone’s networks are conducive to business continuity as they offer disaster recovery solutions across network and cloud. They also provide direct peering with cloud service providers like Microsoft, Google and AWS. The service is also SD WAN Ready, which is the next generation mixed mode transport along with software driven overlay.

Taking security to the next level in a convenient manner

CRIZAC found the onboarding process of Vodafone Cloud Solution to be hassle-free. Vodafone’s customer service team gathered all the information about CRIZAC’s application, database, users, bandwidth and security features, based on which they finalised the bill of materials (BOM).

Vodafone’s commercial team then got into action to help transfer CRIZAC’s in-house infrastructure to Vodafone Cloud Solution. Later on, the entire solution was deployed on the Virtual Machine environment.

Since then, CRIZAC has witnessed significant up time, and lower capital expenditure (capex) for its operations. It has also done away with continual maintenance issues, downtime issues and risks from external threats that come with operating their own server. For any troubleshooting matters, CRIZAC also receives a single service desk experience to take care of domain controller (DC) and connectivity related issues.

Given that CRIZAC saw immense benefits with reduced operational cost, on-demand scalability, and increased business agility, Vodafone became the exclusive service provider to CRIZAC.