One of South Africa’s leading insurance companies has strengthened its security systems by using the solutions offered by endpoint security specialist SentinelOne. This has enabled the organisation to strengthen its cybersecurity measures and fight back against ransomware attacks, in the quest for ongoing efficiencies, safety and customer service.

Executive Solutions is a Sentinel One Platinum partner which manages its own MaaS MSSP platform. The company has aligned itself with value-added distributor Exclusive Networks Africa, distributing SentinelOne solutions throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

Fighting back against cyber attacks

The life assurance company’s Head of IT explains: “We specialise in offering top-class dread disease, life and disability insurance services through professional and expert telephone marketing and service delivery, following a ‘referral only’ business model. With regards to our physical presence, we cover the whole of South Africa with our outbound, call centre-based business model.”

The initial service provider that installed the SentinelOne solutions was based in the United States and the platform was shared. When the now-Head of IT joined the life assurance company during 2021, he realised that it would be better to partner with a local company, and not have to deal with people trying to work together in partnership while based in different time zones.

“Having worked previously with Executive Solutions, I contacted them to assist us,” he clarifies. “I wanted to be able to work with a local company, and in this regard, having known and trusted Executive Solutions, they were my first port of call.”

SentinelOne solution and expertise provided locally by Executive Solutions

He continues: “SentinelOne has therefore remained unchanged, because we are extremely happy with the NextGen protection it delivers. The Company has been able to make a shift to working with a local service provider in order to optimise our operations.

“In essence, we have been able to improve our back end support, and offer significant enhancements in service and efficiencies. Executive Solutions has rolled out the solution and expertly handled all the heavy lifting. The recent updating process was frictionless, and the project, which took between two to three weeks, saw every one of our endpoints covered, country wide.”

Executive Solutions (ES) Business Development Head Lance Levitas echoes this statement: “ES has cemented its standing within its growing family of Clients, by intensely focussing on delivering world class service and investing heavily in expert skills. After extensive experience with a number of next-gen solutions, SentinelOne has proven itself to be the best in class across its entire stack.”

SentinelOne: a world-class offering driven by AI

Shaahid Amod, SentinelOne Vendor Alliance Manager at Exclusive Networks Africa, adds: “The use of SentinelOne solutions enables IT managers to predict malicious behaviour across major threat vectors in real time and quickly eliminate threats with fully-automated responses.

“This is because SentinelOne unifies prevention, detection, and response in a single platform that is driven by sophisticated machine learning and intelligent automation. It is an incredible addition to the defence arsenal of any organisation in beating back cyber threat attempts.”

The life assurance company spokesperson adds: “In addition to its excellent security solutions, SentinelOne also proved to be of real additional value recently when we were required to carry out an asset audit. With the company being spread out across such a large part of the country, we found that SentinelOne was able to assist in being part of our ‘source of truth’ with regards to our endpoints.”

Close the door

He continues, with regards to practical advice for local businesses, that there is no point in spending millions of rands on an organisation’s security initiatives from a hardware and software perspective, and then ‘leaving the back door open’.

“I believe that there is currently a real lack in the country’s cybersecurity armament with regards to end-user awareness training,” he explains, “because unaware end-users represent the proverbial back door when they click on phishing emails and thereby let the cyber-attackers into the organisation.

“It is therefore extremely important to build a cybersecurity awareness culture in your business by encouraging savvy thinking and increased awareness. In this regard, the Company has embarked on a ‘Think before you click’ campaign within our company and this has helped to foster the understanding that cyber security today is everyone’s responsibility, and not only that of the IT department. I believe that if a greater awareness of this mindset was adopted, to create an actual mind shift, then the cyber world would be a much safer place,” he concludes.