CUSTOMER CASE STUDY CD BABY

Sophos and AWS Help
CD Baby Provide Reliable
and Safe Systems for
Independent Music Artists
Around the World
CD Baby pays independent artists for their music in call the ways musicians
earn money today: streaming, downloads, vinyl and CD sales, videomonetization, sync licensing, publishing royalties, and more. Over the past
two decades, CD Baby has grown to become the largest global distributor ofindependent music, that largest publishing rights administrator in the world,
one of the most trusted names in the music business, and the go-to educationresource on topics such as music marketing, rights management, and more.
CD Baby is proud to work on behalf of 700k+ recording artists, helping thembuild a better bridge between their creativity and all the revenue sources theyneed to start or sustain a successful career in music.

CUSTOMER-AT-A-GLANCE
CD BabyPortland, ORWebsite
www.cdbaby.com

Sophos Solutions
Sophos Managed Threat Response (MTR)
Sophos Cloud Optix

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY CD BABY

‘We place an immense value in paying ourartists consistently and on-time while ensuringsystems are safe, reliable, and monitored.
Without trust we don’t have a business.’
Tom Beohm
VP, ITCD Baby

Executive Summary

Broadening IT Security

The Right Investment

Trust is at the core of the business for independent
music distributor CD Baby. Working withindependent artists from around the world, CD Baby
ensures that music is successfully purchased,streamed, and shared. With the use of the public
cloud, CD Baby’s IT organization ensures music andthe platform is reliable and continually available.
With the help of AWS, Sophos Cloud Optix, and theSophos MTR service, CD Baby is able to provide itsartists a safe community and a dependable music
network.

Over the last several years, CD Baby has grown
and, as a result, required a security solution to fit
their needs. With a steady increase in streaming
services and downloadable music, the use of
the public cloud became instrumental for theorganization. Looking to up-level security while
establishing best practices, VP, IT Tom Beohm led
the charge to modernize CD Baby’s infrastructureand security. A methodical evaluation of which
security solutions could be easily implemented
while locking down user security began. “As wetransitioned to the cloud, it was critical that we took
infrastructure, IT complexity, employees, artists,
and business growth all into consideration. We want
to rightfully serve these areas and groups well. It’s afundamental part of what we do,” describes Beohm.

“For us, a return on what we are investing insecurity was the primary goal,” outlines Beohm. CD
Baby knew integrating the principle of protecting
company data was paramount. For the company
and Beohm’s team is was not just about securing
information but providing data and progress backto the business. “With security, it was about putting
ROI in action,” explains Beohm. “I knew we must
make a concerted effort to tie business successand security together.”CUSTOMER CASE STUDY CD BABY

Prioritizing Artists and TheirWork

The Value of Sophos to Builda Great Business

At CD Baby the security elements are diverse andBeohm trusts his team to understand this. Managerof Systems Engineering Mahir Hrustić works withBeohm closely to guide security initiatives whichmeet business needs. Protecting audio files andartwork, along with file transfers for seamlessdigital music delivery translates to consistent
network uptime. Infrastructure must be resilient anddurable. “Every person at CD Baby is a steward tothe artists who entrust their work to us,” expresses
Beohm. Hrustić whole-heartedly agrees. Under theIT team’s leadership, CD Baby has created a trusted
community where artists feel understood and, theirwork, protected. By better securing the entire CD
Baby environment, the company can truly support
their community of artists.

Modernizing their security practice, gives CD Baby
the ability to not only secure, but provide data andvisibility back to the business through Sophos
Intercept X Advanced with EDR and the Sophos
Managed Threat Response (MTR) service. ForBeohm, this is the ROI in action. “The investment ispaying off,” adds Beohm.
CD Baby utilizes a hybrid environment with alarge number of workloads running in AWS. Froma services perspective, CD Baby runs Amazon
GuardDuty and AWS CloudTrail with Sophos Cloud
Security Posture Management solution, Sophos
Cloud Optix, providing the filter to these services.
Workloads and data running on Amazon EC2Instances are protected against advanced threatsby Sophos Intercept X Advanced for Server with

EDR and MTR, while CD Baby’s dynamic Kubernetes
container environment is continually analyzed forvulnerabilities by Sophos Cloud Optix to provide
complete visibility across their AWS environment.
“It’s imperative that we see misconfigurations andvulnerabilities and Sophos provides us the clarity
we need,” states Hrustić. Additionally, CD Baby
use AWS Transit Gateway Network Manager whichmakes it easier to monitor their Amazon Virtual
Private Cloud environment. CD Baby uses network
visualizations and with Cloud Optix appreciates
the correlation and single UI for multiple AWS
environments and accounts which are brought intoone, easy-to-digest view.

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY CD BABYFor Beohm and Hrustić Sophos MTR has helped
streamline their organization. CD Baby IT has beenable to add expertise and a dedicated SOC without
having to increase headcount and incur incremental
costs. “MTR provides us a major benefit,” asserts
Beohm. “The team of experts available 24/7 - they
do this for a living. We appreciate that they keep
on top of the latest activity and threats, so we canfocus on delivering a secure, world-class service
for customers and artists. They support us and canmonitor or start executing at any time of day. Thismakes our entire team efficient,” affirms Hrustić.

It’s these security practices which allow CD Baby tosucceed as a company. Sophos is at the foundation
for CD Baby’s reliable platform and community ofartists. “We want to do all we can to ensure theartists at CD Baby do well now and into the future.
Partnering with Sophos allows us to do just that,”concludes Beohm

In taking stock of their security plans, both Beohmand Hrustić are content with the steps taken toimprove and modernize their security posture. “TheSophos solutions we have in place work extremely
well for us. The mix of endpoint protection, CloudOptix, and the MTR service are exactly what weneed. The suite of solutions has contributed to themodernization of security practices – which wethink is great,” verbalizes Hrustić.

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how Sophos can help you,please visit sophos.com

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