Cloud Transformation: Building Automated Cloud-native Security and Governance
Executive Sponsor: Almir Hadzialjevic, VP of Enterprise Risk and Security
Project Team: David Nolan (Director, InfoSec), Jeremy Brooks (InfoSec Architect), Abigail Johnson (Senior Security Engineer), Joshua McNair (Infrastructure Principal Engineer), John McAleer (IAM Engineer), Joseph Moore (Systems Engineer), Eric Simmons (Lead AppSec Engineer), Stuart Lane (AppSec Engineer)
Location: Atlanta, GA
Aaron’s Technology and Information Security teams formed a joint cloud adoption and governance task force. Over the past year, this task force was able to improve security, reduce costs, and improve overall cost management in Aaron’s Azure environment. Due to the lack of existing commercial technologies and tools, the team shifted to a cloud-native approach by creating customized integrations and automation using Azure native functionality and open source tools to achieve leading security. This allowed Aaron’s to improve visibility, automate event alerting and remediation and as a result, reduced MTTR to milliseconds.
Project Eureka: Building an Automated Approach to Privacy on a Lean Budget
Executive Sponsor: Almir Hadzialjevic, VP of Enterprise Risk and Security
Project Team: Daniel Pugh (Sr Information Security Engineer- Project Lead), David Nolan (Director- Information Security), Ed Bonapfel (Legal Counsel), Kevin Leclair (Director- Software Engineering- Digital Leasing Solutions), Eric Simmons (Security Software Engineer), Chitra Somu (Data Management Analyst- Information Intelligence), Eric Russell (Cloud Data Architect), Rahim Mosha (Sr. Database Engineer), Curtis Whitworth (Sr. Database Administrator), Steve Werntz (Sr. Director- Enterprise Data and Intelligence), LaDonna Nettles (Sr. Manager- Software Engineering), Jonathan Mutnick (Manager- Software Engineering), Hiren Patel (Director- Data Infrastructure)
Location: Atlanta, GA
Project Eureka was an enterprise-wide initiative led by Aaron’s Information Security team and supported by Legal and IT to develop an automated, scalable, and sustainable framework for privacy management in order to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and any future local, state, and federal privacy laws.
In addition to enabling compliance with the CCPA and establishing a framework for complying with emerging privacy laws in an effective and efficient way, the project provided valuable insight into the business processes, systems, applications, data flows, and vendor relationships that will be leveraged by multiple stakeholders within the business for process optimization, risk assessments, and business continuity planning.
Quacking the Code: Aflac’s Global Malware Analysis Program
Executive Sponsor: Tim Callahan, Senior Vice President, Global Security Officer
Project Team: DJ Goldsworthy (Director, Security Operations & Threat Management), Ben Harbin (Manager, Threat Management)
Location: Columbus, GA
The goal of the project was to proactively combat today’s cyber threat by leveraging the very same resource used by criminals: malware. Aflac first collected malware from sensors distributed in the United States and Japan, and then analyzed and incorporated the findings into defensive capabilities. Using the thousands of malicious samples sent to Aflac via email each day, the team deconstructed and analyzed the malware to extract precise indicators of compromise. The information was then tagged and organized in Aflac’s threat intelligence platform. The automatic orchestration ensured relevant data was then pushed to defensive technologies, strengthening Aflac’s overall security posture.
Avanos Medical - Cyber Security Transformation
Executive Sponsor: Elias Nyankojo, CISO
Project Team: Scott Stanton (Former Interim CISO), Elias Nyankojo (CISO), Pradeepthi C (Sr. Security Engineer), Javier Martinez (Sr. Security Engineer), Carl Springer (Security Engineer), Daniel Li (Security Engineer), Giuliana Vela (Security Operations Engineer), Camille Hines (Security Operations Engineer)
Location: Alpharetta, GA
In May 2018, Halyard Health was divested from Avanos Medical. During the divestiture, Avanos took advantage of the opportunity to modernize its legacy systems. Over the following 18 months, Avanos undertook a 100% greenfield cloud-first IT transformation. This transformation scope was IT systems for all business organizations including Supply Chain, Finance, HR, Quality, Customer Service, Sales, R&D, and Regulatory. During this IT transformation, Avanos implemented a brand-new cyber security program including new security infrastructure, software, architecture, governance, policy, process, operations, organizational structure, and outsourcing model.
Cynet Comp Controls
Executive Sponsor: Andrew Bjerken, Global Chief Information Security & Privacy Officer
Project Team: Ken Pascua (Director Security Risk Management), Nancy Wright (Manager Security Operations), Mike Stolarik (Manager Security Architecture & Engineering), Anthony Prezenchuk (Pres-n-shook) (Security Engineer), Mike Hamilton (Sr. Implementation Analyst), Chris Bates (Sr. Director Support), Dulani McLaurin (Dir Product Management), Marion Hamacek (GVP International), Roberto Luberti (IT & Ops Director, Italy), Kanako Nukagawa “Nuk” (Manager, Japan), Toshihito Takahashi “Toshi” (Director Technology, Japan), Jerome Husson (System & Network Dir, EU), Ana Walsh (Program Manager), Sarah Sensibaugh (Project Manager), Hannah Lawrence (Enterprise Agility Leader), Steve Stephenson (Dir of Quality Engineering), Barry Hauhe (Test Engineer II), Penny Boyer (Sr. Dir Brand Development), Heather Talerico (VP Sales Enablement), Michael Wiege (IT Dir (Germany), Moira Hinson (ED Corporate Communication), Stephen Miano (Lead Systems Engineer), Kevin Buley (Lead Delivery Engineer), Crystal Stainrod (Privacy Analyst), Rajkumar Karuppaiah (Raj) (Sr. Network Firewall Engineer), Srihari Balu (Sr. Financial Analyst), Premal Patel (GM UK)
Location: St. Petersburg, FL
Catalina maintains appliances in 45,000+ stores worldwide across 325+ retailer networks. These appliances enable one of Catalina’s primary revenue streams and must remain compliant to continue to operate. Catalina launched the Retailer Awards Compliance (RAC) project to achieve ongoing and demonstrable compliance with PCI, HIPAA, APPI, and GDPR. The project included Symantec MFA and Cynet to reduce risk, assure security and privacy for 430M consumers. Key control requirements included the ability to operate on the existing legacy hardware/OS base, anti-virus, application whitelisting, FIM, and 24/7 monitoring capability. The successful implementation included global coordination for individualized rollout plans for each retailer.
Cox + Cloud: The Ultimate Bundle
Executive Sponsor: Jemin Thakkar, Executive Director, Information Security
Project Team: Jason Weissman (Director, Security Architecture and Privacy), Stuart Keener (Senior Director, Data Protection and IAM), Brian Kelly (Cloud Security Architect), DJ McCall (Director, Infrastructure Platform Automation), David Botters (Manager, Infrastructure Platform Automation), Bob Boldin (Engineer, Infrastructure Platform Automation)
Location: Atlanta, GA
As the business wanted to leverage the scale of the cloud, Cox Communications Information Security embarked on its journey to enable the secure adoption of cloud platforms through technical capabilities and flexible self-service models. Information Security designed and implemented controls, leveraging both cloud-native and existing technology solutions. Information Security prioritized processes for access provisioning, privileged access management, threat detection and data protection for a holistic secure cloud capability. The collaboration across Cox’s Cloud Center of Excellence resulted in the implementation of a minimal viable cloud, permitting repeatable architectures, controls and uniformity across the cloud footprint.
Project Baywatch
Executive Sponsor: Brad Boucher, Deputy Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and Vice President
Project Team: Michael Deal (Director, Technology)
Location: Sandy Springs, GA
To address Security’s challenge ingraining accountability across its business and an increasing need for enhanced stakeholder reporting; the team developed and implemented a cyber analytics and visualization portal; IRIS. IRIS empowers the cybersecurity team and its stakeholders to monitor, track, and report on the state of the cybersecurity program in a structured, centralized and automated means. IRIS is now Cox’s centralized portal for security practitioners, technology stakeholders, and business owners to view relevant metrics, dashboards, and reports impacting the organization's security posture.
EFX Cloud Control
Executive Sponsor: Jerry Liu, VP, Global Security Engineering
Project Team: Abdul Asfour (Security Architect), Bradley Lemming (Lead Security Engineer), Lonnie Harris (Director, Security Engineering), Amanda Mason (Scrum Master), Troin Artis (Security Engineer), Joe Coniglio (Security Engineer), Ben Oludotun (Platform Service Engineer)
Location: Alpharetta, GA
Two of the greatest challenges for organizations today are cloud and supplier security risk. As a company with a cloud-first strategy and thousands of partners, Equifax has aggressively focused on addressing these risks. In partnering with C3M, Equifax has designed and implemented Cloud Control, a multi-cloud assurance capability which provides real-time visibility into the coverage and effectiveness of over 100 cloud controls, including the ability to auto-remediate identified weaknesses. Importantly, this allows us to demonstrate the control status of customers’ procured products/services which can be viewed 24x7 and is a powerful advancement relative to the check-the-box questionnaires organizations typically use today.
Access Review & Credential Entitlement
Executive Sponsor: Steve Mosley, Sr. Manager Data Center Security & Compliance
Location: Atlanta, GA
Each year SITA’s Internal Audit department undertakes a manual review to do access reviews for its 4700 employees across multiple applications worldwide in accordance with ISO27001.This onerous process is repeated every three months. SITA embarked on a project to automate access reviews, reduce human errors and improve overall identity management by rolling out an Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) program across its employee base.
Cyber Fusion Center
Executive Sponsor: Kevin Gowen, Chief Information Security Officer
Project Team: Robert Nixon (Cyber Fusion Center Lead), Aaron Fisher (Information Security Analyst), Teraney Montgomery (Information Security Analyst), Patrick Barnes (Information Security Engineer), Vincent Vu (Information Security Analyst), Donya Jenkins (Financial Crimes Detection Specialist), Ryan McDonald (Information Security Architect), Lee Himes (Sr. Dir., Information Security), Marissa Page (Information Security Co-op)
Location: Columbus, GA
Connect the people, processes and technology within Information Security, Financial Crimes and Information Technology to promote information sharing and produce a more efficient, informed, and secure organization. Standardize, consolidate, and streamline communication and processes and leverage automation where possible, to reduce the mean time to respond to cyber and fraud-related events. Areas included, but not limited to, Security Operations Center, Financial Crimes Unit, Identity and Access Management, Physical Security, Threat Hunting, Cyber Threat Intelligence, Vulnerability Management, and Incident Response.
SecureUVA
Executive Sponsor: Virginia Evans, Chief Information Officer (CIO)
Project Team: Virginia Evans (CIO), Dana German (Deputy CIO), Jason Belford (CISO), Michael Grinnell (Deputy CISO), Brian Davis (Director, IS Operations), Chris Ledvina (Director, IT Service Mgmt), Christy Joseph (Security Engineer), Claire LaBar (Communications Specialist), Clayton Lockhart (AVP, Enterprise Infrastructure), Cory Brant (Policy Analyst), Dale Dew (Project Manager), Dave Strite (AVP, User Experience & Engagement), Jasmin Perez (Communications Specialist), Jeff Collyer (Security Engineer), Jeremy Kong (InfoSec Analyst), Keith Donnelly (Director, Enterprise and Cloud Platforms), Keith Gearhart (Project Manager), Keith Moores (Director , Network, Telephony & Video Services), Kara Beth Glover (Fiscal Operations and Strategic Planning Analysis), Kelly Downey (Education & Awareness Sr. Analyst), Kris Celeste (Communications Specialist), Kylie Cuthbertson (InfoSec Liaison), Lucas Reynard (InfoSec Analyst), Marc Perdue (InfoSec Liaison), Margaret Gokturk (Sr. Policy Analyst), Marty Peterman (InfoSec Analyst), Michael Higginbotham (Project Manager), Ron Withers (Supervisor, Network Engineering), Sandy German (Director, Customer Communications & Outreach), Shana Fabio (Project Manager), Stacy Sties (InfoSec Liaison), Susie McCormick (AVP, Finance & Administration), Ted Gayle (Local Support Person Coordinator), Tim Tolson (Director, IT Policy), Tony Townsend (InfoSec Analyst), Tracy Smith (Director, Service Support Operations)
Location: Charlottesville, VA
After a 2015 cyber breach, the University of Virginia (UVA) Board of Visitors authorized a funding package to enhance the University’s information security program. SecureUVA, the name given to this initiative, was comprised of three dozen subprojects carried out over a three-year period. The overall goal of SecureUVA was to fundamentally decrease the cyber risk to the University’s data and IT resources through a combination of protection, detection, and response.
WINAuth
Executive Sponsor: Tony Spurlin, Vice President & Chief Information Security Officer
Project Team: Amanda Deusenbery (Director – Security Engineering), Jason Nystrom (Director – Identity & Access Management), Milt Curtis (Applications Programmer), David Holmes (Sr. Security Engineer), Sam Adewale (Security Engineer), Nell Gainer (Sr. Security Consultant), Brian Cullinan (Sr. Security Engineer)
Location: Atlanta, GA
WINAuth is a highly scalable authentication and access management capability designed and built by Windstream Enterprise Information Risk & Security to provide identity and access management (IAM), user access certification, single sign-on (SSO) and Multi-factor authentication (MFA). The WINAuth solution serves all Windstream customers, consumers, employees, vendors and third-parties by delivering a secure, frictionless, single sign-on and multifactored authentication service for over 1.6 Million user accounts. This mission critical capability has not only improved the security and user experience for our over 1.6 million users it was also critical to the success of Windstream’s new PCI compliant product and services delivered to our enterprise customers.