CUSTOMER CASE STUDY
Trio of Sophos ProductsProtects Government Agency
Against Advanced Malware

Customer-at-a-Glance
Roads and Highways Department,
Bangladesh

IndustryGovernment

Number of Staff
400

Websitehttp://rhd.portal.gov.bd/

Sophos Solutions
Central Endpoint Advanced(previously Sophos Cloud Endpoint)
Central Endpoint Intercept X
XG 430 FullGuard

Sophos Customer
Since 2015

‘As the head of IT security, I wasvery clear in my mind that I did notwant to deploy end user protection
and network security from different
vendors. I was looking for a single
security vendor who had theexpertise to deliver next-gen endpoint
protection and network security.
Sophos met these needs perfectly.’
Kazi Sayeda Momtaz
Senior System Analyst
Roads and Highways Department

Roads and Highways Department, Bangladesh A customer success story

Roads and Highways Department, Bangladesh A customer success story

Business ChallengeÌÌ Prevent disruption of regular operations and organization
processes as well as reduce threat to employee productivity
ÌÌ Secure the organization from advanced malware
threats and ransomware attacks, which could resultin extensive financial losses to the governmentÌÌ Ensure the highest level of security to the agency’s
network perimeter and enduser devices to guard
against rapidly evolving cyber threatsÌÌ Provide a comprehensive yet simple security
deployment that was easy to manage‘The threat landscapeis getting increasingly
complicated and madeworse by the infusionof point products that
don’t talk to each other.
With Sophos and its
unique Synchronized
Security, endpoint
protection is talking to
the firewall and viceversa to work as anintegrated security
system automating
incident response andoffering better andmore cohesive security.’
Kazi Sayeda Momtaz
Senior System Analyst
Roads and Highways Department

The Roads and Highways Department (RHD) is a government
department responsible for the construction and maintenanceof highways and bridges in Bangladesh, as well as major roadand bridge networks of the country. It prides itself on the level ofaccountability it brings to its activities. Its head office is in Dhaka,Bangladesh.
Since its inception, RHD’s activities have led to the creation ofmassive amounts of critical data that enables them to streamline
their activities, optimize resources, and overall deliver the kind ofservices that go a long way to help create the road and highway
infrastructure that drives the economic growth of the country.
The sensitivity of the data and the fact that this data is constantly
growing in volume means RHD needs to put in place advanced IT
security measures on the network and endpoint to defend against
advanced malware and other cyber threats.
One of RHD’s key security goals is that critical government data
does not fall into the hands of rogue state or non-state actors. After
conducting a thorough analysis and evaluation of the IT security
vendors on the market, RHD had no doubts that Sophos’ strong
portfolio of powerful security solutions was best placed to cater totheir cybersecurity needs.
Ms. Kazi Sayeda Momtaz, is the senior system analyst at RHD. She
and her team are in charge of making sure that RHD’s network
perimeter and endpoints are secure against cyber attackers whowant to get their hands on sensitive information that can be usedto disrupt key infrastructure projects. Her primary goal was tostrengthen the organization’s cyber attack readiness, especiallyagainst advanced malware attacks like ransomware. Suchattacks have the potential to disrupt business processes, hamper
productivity, destroy the agency’s reputation, and lead to financial
losses. Considering RHD is a government organization, Ms. Kazi
wanted to categorically ensure a robust IT security infrastructure,empowered with next-gen security solutions that worked as asystem, weren’t needlessly complex, and were easy to manage.

Roads and Highways Department, Bangladesh A customer success story“I did not want RHD to confront a scenario wherein thecompany experiences a ransomware attack and sufferedfrom its catastrophic consequences. My job is to makesure that the organization’s systems are operating as theyshould, securely and seamlessly. I was therefore looking for
reliable security solutions that offer protection against therapidly evolving threat landscape,” explains Ms. Kazi.
Unfortunately, cyber attacks, especially those leveled atgovernment agencies, are a sad reality in today’s world.
These attacks not only cause great harm to the reputationof the organization, but also impact the many projects thatthe agency is involved with.
“I was always concerned about newer and more complex
attacks being able to get into our network and causing
havoc in the system. We manage immense data
volumes and must meet a range of internal compliancerequirements that help keep our network perimeter andendpoint safe from targeted attacks. I and my teamenvisioned a comprehensive framework that integrated
best-of-breed security solutions and offered real-timeprotection. Sophos, as a leader in both endpoint andnetwork security was best placed to bring this vision to life,”says Ms. Kazi.

What is the impact of malware and targeted
attacks on a government agency like RHD?
The digitization of information and increasing numbersof threat vectors presents new challenges to securingdata, especially when employees are accessing corporate
resources from outside the network perimeter. This leaves
government agencies like RHD vulnerable to malware
and targeted attacks. When this happens, the result is
disastrous and organizations are left picking up the pieces
for a very long time. Such attacks result in highly sensitive
information being compromised, paralyzation of essential
services, and loss in productivity leading to escalating
overhead costs.
“As a government organization, we need to remain
extremely vigilant in protecting our data from malicious
attacks and ensuring our vulnerabilities aren’t exploitedby cyber attackers. For this reason, it was imperative that
we deployed security solutions that offered only the mostadvanced protection. Sophos offers the latest in antiransomware, anti-exploit, anti-malware, and APT protection
across our devices and data,” explains Ms. Kazi.

How did Sophos solutions help protect
against evolving threats?
Ms. Kazi brings to her job her many years of expertise in IT
security, and therefore was very clear that she wanted todeploy solutions that offer comprehensive security, work

as a system, and are simple to use. She started looking fora security vendor that had a lineup of products that offeredprotection for RHD’s networks and endpoints and which areeasy to manage after initial deployment.
“Our overarching goal was to deploy products that havethe necessary capability to address sophisticated andincreasingly complex cyber threats, and at the same time
have an inherent simplicity that allows my team to maximize
their potential. We worked with the Sophos channel partnerin the region, who had many successful implementations
behind them, and are very happy they asked us to look atSophos. Both my team and I were impressed with the ability
displayed by Sophos products during the evaluation stage,and its large installed base gave us added confidence in theability of the vendor to come good on our expectations,” said
Ms. Kazi.
After a thorough analysis of the IT security challenges
faced by RHD, Ms. Kazi signed on for 400 user licenses ofSophos Central Endpoint Advanced, 400 user licenses ofSophos Intercept X, and 2 units of XG 430 with FullGuard
subscription.
“While we evaluated plenty of security vendors on the market,
we felt none of the vendors even came close to the kind ofcapabilities Sophos’ products offered. Sophos’ solutions
are truly next-gen, innovative and perfectly aligned withemerging technology trends,” asserts Ms. Kazi.
The IT team at RHD trusted Sophos’ ability to deliver the nextlevel of security to protect against the latest threats.

How did XG Firewall, Central Endpoint
Advanced, and Intercept X benefit agovernment agency like RHD?
Sophos XG Firewall delivers comprehensive next-gen firewall
protection to RHD and blocks unknown threats, automatically
responds to incidents, and exposes hidden risks. For Ms. Kazi
and her team, XG Firewall’s advanced technology, including
advanced threat protection, dual antivirus, web and appcontrol, email protection, and full-featured web application
firewall, offered the next level of protection againstransomware and other advanced threats they wanted.
“We were mightily impressed by XG Firewall’s capability
to identify the source of infection on our network andimmediately limit access to other network resources inresponse. This made our life a whole lot easier as thisautomatic incident response saved us a lot of time and effort.
We also knew that the unique Sophos Security Heartbeat™
was sharing the health status of endpoints and firewall tosecure our organization from complex and coordinatedthreats,” says Ms. Kazi.

Roads and Highways Department, Bangladesh A customer success story
ProductIcon

The IT team also wanted more visibility into unknown apps,
risky users, suspicious payloads, and much more. Not only
did XG Firewall deliver on those requirements – it also madethis information easy to consume with the help of rich onbox reporting.
“One of the biggest benefits of XG Firewall is that patented
layer-8 identity control helps me and my team exercise
user-level control over applications, bandwidth, and othernetwork resources. This has enabled me to optimize
bandwidth and ensure only the right people have access tokey network resources,” explains Ms. Kazi.
RHD primarily uses Windows systems and Sophos Central
Endpoint Advanced made it simple to secure their systems
against malware and advanced threats such as targeted
attacks.
“With next-gen Endpoint Protection from Sophos, we
can now detect malicious traffic with real-time threat
intelligence from SophosLabs. This not only helps us
prevent and detect threats but also remediate them withease,” says Ms. Kazi. Sophos Central Endpoint Advanced
offers a slew of innovative features including anti-malware,Host Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS), and gave Ms.
Kazi and her team granular web, application, device, anddata control for enforcing comprehensive policy acrossendpoints. “Web filtering is enforced on the endpoint
even when users are off the corporate network, which isof immense benefit. It enabled us to limit internet accessof users or groups of users even when they were using
their devices outside of the network. This level of control isimportant for a government organization like RHD,” Ms. Kazi
explains.
With Intercept X, RHD boosted its next-gen endpointprotection with the benefits of deep learning malware
detection, anti-ransomware, exploit prevention, root cause
analysis and Sophos Clean remediation.

“Intercept X protects RHD from advanced malware attacks
like ransomware by detecting new and unseen malware
files accurately and without signatures. CryptoGuard
technology stops ransomware by identifying spontaneous
malicious data encryption. The great part is that it works
at the file system level and integrates seamlessly with
Sophos Endpoint Protection giving RHD an additional layerof security on the endpoint,” asserts Ms. Kazi.

How did the deployment of Sophos wow
RHD?
RHD had tremendous expectations from the various
Sophos products it deployed, and these delivered on theorganization’s expectations and then some more.
“With Synchronized Security, I know RHD’s networkand endpoint protection is working together to deliver
better security against advanced threats and spends
less time responding to incidents – and it handles them
automatically. Before, we used to spend an immense
amount of time responding to such incidents, which
impacted our business continuity, and which in turn led
to cost overruns in projects. This has stopped with thedeployment of Sophos XG Firewall, Endpoint Protection
and Intercept X,” states Ms. Kazi.
Intercept X’s ability to block all known ransomware also
impressed the executives at RHD.
“The fact that it stops never-before-seen ransomware andboot-record attacks is of huge benefit to RHD. Data is oneof our prized possessions and Sophos Intercept X ensuresthat no unauthorized user is able to access this data,” says
Ms. Kazi.
Overall the ability of Sophos deployments to offer next-gen
security, simplicity of deployments, ease of management
and their ancillary capabilities helped RHD save a lot ofman hours, improve productivity, and control costs.

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