Case Studies > Centerra Gold digs security with Bitdefender Elite Security

Centerra Gold digs security with Bitdefender Elite Security

Company Size

1,000+

Region

America
Asia

Country

Canada

Product

GravityZone Elite Security
Full-Disk Encryption

Tech Stack

Citrix
VMware ESXI
Linux
Microsoft Windows

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Customer Satisfaction
Digital Expertise
Productivity Improvements

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Machine Learning
Cybersecurity & Privacy - Endpoint Security
Cybersecurity & Privacy - Network Security

Applicable Industries

Metals
Mining

Applicable Functions

Business Operation
Field Services

Services

Cybersecurity Services
System Integration

About The Customer

Centerra Gold, Inc. is a Canadian-based gold mining and exploration company engaged in the operation, exploration, development, and acquisition of gold and base metals properties in Asia, North America and other markets worldwide. The company is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and employs around 3,000 people, including 80 IT staff. Centerra Gold operates in mostly remote locations, transforming the areas surrounding its production sites both financially and socially. The company supports local communities by hiring locally and obtaining materials locally whenever possible. The IT team at Centerra Gold supports a wide range of end users, including office workers who rely on Microsoft Office and other Windows-based applications, as well as technical workers like geo scientists who use resource-intensive applications for geological information gathering and interpretation.

The Challenge

The company’s primary goal is to increase gold production while ensuring human safety, protecting the environment, and supporting local communities. Centerra policy is to hire locally and obtain materials locally whenever possible. With operations in mostly remote locations, the company often transforms the area surrounding its production sites, both financially and socially, creating an entirely new ecosystem. Centerra Gold employs IT staff across eight sites in five countries to support the company’s business goals and IT infrastructure. The IT team supports a wide range of end users including office workers who rely on Microsoft Office – and other Windows-based applications – as well as technical workers like geo scientists who rely on costly, resource-hungry applications that gather, interpret, and deliver geological information used in exploration and prospecting activities. Both types of applications compete for the same laptop resources protected by the same endpoint security. By 2009, their security software was impacting system performance, slowing laptops and desktops, prompting application crashes, and making troubleshooting complicated and difficult. “We needed a solution that could manage all endpoints anywhere in real time, regardless of endpoint architectures, operating systems (OS), or applications,” said Slava Bukhryakov, Lead, Centerra Gold Information Systems and Cyber Security. The team wanted a solution that provided confidentiality with endpoint security preventing threats from stealing data and eavesdropping and availability, meaning that the endpoint security is not causing issues with the stability of the application or operating system.

The Solution

After evaluating several solutions, the company chose Bitdefender GravityZone Elite Security with the cloud management option to centrally manage endpoint security rules, policy distributions, containment, remediation, and overall congruency with their own vision for security and protection. Centerra also liked that Bitdefender holds more than 70 patents, including 10 related to machine-learning, anomaly-detection, and deep-learning. “We learned that the Bitdefender solution is so highly regarded in the marketplace that you’ll find the Bitdefender engine under the hood of competing solutions,” Bukhryakov said. The single pane-of-glass management console lets them easily manage all endpoints worldwide – and the cloud ensures alerts and reports flow instantly between the management console and endpoints. The company also relies on real-time process monitoring, anti-exploit, and anti-ransomware to detect and prevent Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) and protect against ransomware. “Bitdefender provides our end users the levels of confidentiality, integrity, and availability they need – without disruption,” Bukhryakov said. Other benefits to the end-user include Bitdefender’s ability to inspect secure browsing (HTTPS) without breaking secure sessions – a challenge with their previous solutions. And, in terms of web control, Bitdefender provides URL categorization and the ability to enforce acceptable use policies – anytime, anywhere – without affecting the browsing experience, and invisible to the end user unless a policy is violated. Centerra Gold can also prevent the download of malware via the HTTPS/SSL channel and can stop it from contacting command and control (C2) using this secure channel.

Operational Impact

The IT team is benefiting from Bitdefender’s move away from traditional signature-based detection towards layered next-gen security based on machine learning, behavior-based detection, and prevention with a focus on advanced exploit techniques and anomaly behavior.
With Bitdefender, Centerra Gold achieves a 99.9 percent detection rate and availability across critical features such as the management console, reporting, alerting, and policy management is rated at 100 percent.
The single pane-of-glass management console lets them easily manage all endpoints worldwide – and the cloud ensures alerts and reports flow instantly between the management console and endpoints.
Bitdefender provides real-time process monitoring, anti-exploit, and anti-ransomware to detect and prevent Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) and protect against ransomware.
Bitdefender’s ability to inspect secure browsing (HTTPS) without breaking secure sessions and providing URL categorization and the ability to enforce acceptable use policies without affecting the browsing experience.

Quantitative Benefit