Cellcom Israel Ltd.

Industry: Telecoms

Location: Israel

Products Used: Data Security Suite, Web Security

Cellcom Israel Ltd was established in 1994 and is now the leading cellular provider in Israel. Cellcom provides its 3 million subscribers with a range of value-added services including cellular and landline telephone, roaming services for tourists in Israel as well as additional services including music, video, and mobile office technology. It has 6,000 employees and operates 360 retail outlets and 30 customer service centers across Israel. Cellcom is a public company and its shares are traded both on the New York Stock Exchange and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

The Problem

As with all organisations, Cellcom has large amounts of sensitive and company proprietary information held on their corporate network. However it wasn’t until a serious data leak occurred that Cellcom realised that their sensitive data needed to be better identified, monitored, and protected from potential misuse.

“We had a serious incident a couple of years ago when very important company documents were leaked to the press,” says Amir Shahar, information security manager, Security Department, Cellcom Israel. “Although we weren’t hurt financially — at least not directly — the documents were published and our reputation was certainly damaged. Not only was this embarrassing to the company, but if this kind of event were to happen again, potential losses could be significant.”

As a result of this high-profile security breach, Cellcom assessed its data security situation and decided to look for a data loss prevention solution that would ensure valuable company data was identified and kept inside the organisation.

The Solution

Cellcom had already been using Websense^® Web Security for a number of years to protect its network from Web threats and to monitor Web usage so was familiar with the comprehensive protection of the Websense security portfolio. After looking at a number of solutions on the market, Cellcom selected Websense Data Security Suite to detect and prevent unauthorised use of confidential company information.

“Websense Data Security Suite was the strongest solution we found to protect and prevent against data leakage,” says Shahar. “We looked at Microsoft Rights Management Services (RMS) but this solution only went so far as allowing the owner of a document to select documents to be protected; it didn’t actually identify and automatically apply policies to protect confidential information as Websense Data Security Suite does. The most powerful feature of Websense Data Security Suite is that it monitors the information that you hold within the organisation and identifies which information is confidential and potentially at risk. At that point policies can be automatically put in place to determine who has access to this data and what they can do with it.”

Websense Data Security Suite

Websense offers leading data loss prevention (DLP) technology to identify, monitor, and protect confidential data. Leveraging the combined content inspection techniques of Websense Web security and DLP technologies, Websense data security solutions accurately prevent data loss, secure business processes, and manage compliance and risk. Providing a modular approach to solving the problem of data loss, Websense data security solutions include powerful monitoring capabilities that provide visibility into who is sending what data and where they are sending it.

Websense Data Security Suite enabled Cellcom to understand their position in terms of data security risk and then define a remediation strategy.

“The first stage of implementation was to identify all of the files on the network that contained sensitive information,” says Shahar. “We first monitored the network without employees knowing that the network was being monitored. This was necessary to understand how much sensitive information we had, where it was located, and how it was being used. This monitoring phase was extremely effective and informative.

“Websense Data Security Suite helped us identify 200 gig of data on the network that we hadn’t realised was sensitive. In fact, we didn’t even know that these documents existed. Alerts also told us when sensitive data was moved or sent out of the organisation.”

Using this intelligence, Cellcom put together a set of policy-based controls, which was then published to employees and enforced by Websense Data Security Suite.

“Once we had a good understanding of where the sensitive data was on the network, we could decide who would be able to access this data and what they could do with it,” says Shahar. “This way we can prevent employees either by accident or intent, from sending company sensitive information outside the network. Websense Data Security Suite enables us to better identify and control our confidential data — and puts us in a very strong position in terms of our overall data security.

“People generally don’t breach security on purpose,” says Shahar. “In fact, they often don’t understand the risks and consequences if important information leaves the company network, whether it be sensitive commercial, customer, or regulatory information. Once we published and implemented our data security policies through Websense Data Security Suite, and everyone had a good understanding of what we were trying to achieve and why, security breach alerts dropped from 100 a day to maybe 10 a day.”

Because the original security breach was high profile, Shahar and his team had the immediate backing of senior management to implement a comprehensive data security solution, which Shahar says is particularly important in company-wide acceptance of data security policy:

“Implementing a comprehensive data security solution like Websense Data Security Suite does take some effort as you would expect,” says Shahar. “In total, implementation took a couple of months but what we got out of it was a complete data security solution that provides us with the confidence that we know what sensitive data we have, where it is stored, and can control who has access to this data and what they can do with it. For a high-performance company like Cellcom, this is important to our ongoing competitiveness.”

Cellcom is also planning to implement Websense Data Endpoint to extend comprehensive data security policy to the endpoint.

Websense Data Security Suite includes four modules available standalone or integrated as a suite:

Websense Data Monitor – Monitors who is sending data, and where they’re sending it.

Websense Data Protect – Protects data with policy-based controls that secure business processes.

Websense Data Discover – Discovers and classifies data stored throughout the enterprise.

Websense Data Endpoint – Extends data security, integrated management, and reporting to the endpoint with control over data in use.

The Results

Websense Data Security Suite and Websense Web Security provide Cellcom with a comprehensive Web and data protection solution.

Comprehensively identified sensitive data

“Websense Data Security Suite has enabled us to set policy on information rather than just on specific documents,” says Shahar. “Even if I don’t know where sensitive information is held, the system will automatically identify this and monitor how that information is being used — whether it be Microsoft Word, Excel, or email. Websense Data Security Suite is a very powerful tool that has transformed how we identify, manage, and protect our important company data.”

Secured sensitive data and business processes

“Websense Data Security Suite allows us to set policies to manage which employees can access sensitive data and what they can do with it,” says Shahar. “The solution enables us to block critical information from leaving the organization, which is what caused the security breach in the first place.”

Complete solution from a trusted vendor, achieved ROI

“We have been using Websense Data Security Suite for three years now and have been very pleased with the results,” concludes Shahar. “The local Websense employees in Israel are experts in their field and have been very professional in helping us to implement our data security solution. The money we invested in Websense Data Security Suite has already been proven — we feel we’ve certainly achieved a Return on Investment and our senior management now has the confidence that we are doing everything we can to keep our data safe.”

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