Ballard Power Systems
Ballard Power Advances Compliance and IP Protection with the Trend Vision One Platform
OVERVIEW
Ballard Power Systems is a world leader in the development and commercialization of proton-exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell power systems, which enable the electrification of motive and stationary power. Their IT Director, Adam Brooks, credits a decade-long partnership with Trend Micro for their security resiliency, enabling their team to focus resources on developing clean energy for a sustainable planet.
We’ve had no identifiable virus or security outbreaks in the last 5-10 years…. We don’t have a lot of incidents or downtime, and Trend is part of that success story.
Adam Brooks
IT Director, Ballard Power Systems
Industry
Manufacturing, Energy and Utilities
Employees
1000
Region
Canada, North America
IT Environment
Microsoft Office 365 environment, including corporate servers and workstations (>1,000 endpoints) and Microsoft Exchange
Solutions
- Improves proactive work by 15% via automated workflows that reduce manual efforts
- Enables faster incident response with real-time alerts and access to consolidated data
- Delivers major savings from reduced insurance premiums and no ransomware payouts
CHALLENGES
Ballard Power Systems’ global cybersecurity priorities include protecting the company’s market-differentiating intellectual property (IP) and vital databases. “In the old days, we were worried about things like Blaster and other old-style [malware],” says Brooks. “We now have SOX [the Sarbanes-Oxley Act] and GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] compliance, so we must report to the audit committee and the board of directors. We’re required to know every aspect of our environment.”
The team therefore needed to consolidate their siloed security and proactively manage risk. By moving to the AI-powered Trend Vision One™ platform, Ballard Power Systems sought more comprehensive protection and the ability to better communicate cyber risk to executive and audit teams.
Our insurance rates actually went down because we can prove that we are well supported from a security aspect.
Adam Brooks
IT Director, Ballard Power Systems
WHY TREND
Integrating advanced capabilities such as XDR and attack surface risk management (ASRM), Trend Vision One empowers the Ballard Power Systems team as a unified, proactive cybersecurity platform. They use the built-in Executive Dashboard to assess massive quantities of information without the need for manual processes. In addition, consolidating their cybersecurity enables automated workflows and response measures, enhancing their risk management and reporting amid emerging—and evolving— ransomware, AI, and insider threats. “Trend Vision One has provided us with new capabilities to track our risks in real time,” says Brooks.
SOLUTION
Ballard Power Systems leverages the capabilities of Trend Vision One™ – XDR for Endpoints to run comprehensive threat investigations against all systems, enabling greater risk visibility and insight. Meanwhile, Trend Vision One™ – Attack Surface Risk Management integrates risk-related data into an executive console for continuous discovery, real-time assessments, and automated mitigation across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments.
In gaining automation and full visibility into their security landscape, Ballard Power Systems has also been able to focus on prevention. “Now my security manager and his team can go through the consoles and figure out what’s going on…. [Trend is] alerting us to vulnerabilities in the environment that we would have never been able to get ahold of. We can take that data from Trend and feed it into our other systems and get one combined picture of everything that’s going on in the environment,” says Brooks.
RESULTS
With solutions from Trend reducing the need for manual intervention, Ballard Power Systems has been able to reallocate staff to higher-value tasks. “I estimate that Trend has improved my team’s ability to work proactively by at least 15%,” says Brooks. “Trend Vision One generates automated responses that create tickets. In terms of efficiency, it is a central starting point to kick off automated workflows that bring the required Ballard employees—whether they’re operations, security, network, infrastructure—into the loop automatically.”
Other cost savings for the team include reduced insurance premiums and no ransomware payouts. In a year that is already economically challenging, Ballard Power Systems’ insurance agent stopped servicing manufacturers, but the track record demonstrated by the team via Trend Vision One made it possible for them to quickly find another provider. “Our insurance rates actually went down because we can prove that we are well supported from a security aspect with Trend,” says Brooks.
This proof—including demonstrable, comprehensive risk reporting—also helps Brooks communicate with company executives about managing cyber risk. We are not getting hit with [malware], and downtime is next to nil from [malware] or intrusion,” Brooks says. “That is huge for us and a big differentiator in the industry. [The Trend Vision One platform] is a very easy line item on my budget to get put through every year.”
WHAT'S NEXT
Ballard Power Systems plans to use Trend solutions to bolster their defense against insider threats, a challenge increasingly common across companies of their size. “Ransomware is obviously always going to be huge, and phishing attempts and user education, but I think insider threat and data loss prevention are going to be key areas,” says Brooks.
Partnering with Trend allows Ballard Power Systems to continually enhance their security posture and decrease risk, with GDPR compliance and privacy certifications that simplify protection. “We’ve had no identifiable [malware] or security outbreaks in the last five to 10 years…. We don’t have a lot of incidents or downtime, and Trend is part of that success story.” says Brooks
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