The Canary Islands Government

With a population of more than 2.1 million, the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands shares its capital between the cities of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The Government of the Canary Islands must meet and manage the needs of a dispersed population in terms of health, justice, education, employment, security, social affairs, and more. It relies on technology to connect and manage the services it provides to citizens. For the exercise of its work, and given the challenge of digitalization, cybersecurity has become a strategic pillar for the Canarian Government Executive.

With more than 60,000 public employees, 30,000 computers, 5,000 servers and 1,850 administrative centers connected to the central corporate network, the Government of the Canary Islands faced the challenge of guaranteeing the security of all services throughout the Autonomous Community to a very broad infrastructure base dependent on different councils.

With the premise that security is a continuous process that cannot be left neglected, the Executive was in the position of having to find a solution that was easily manageable, could cover the diversity of the system current subtracting complexity, and provide visibility to the processes. “We needed to have a versatile solution to cover all our needs, but that also allowed us to create a unified enough environment so that it could be manageable and that could be integrated with third-party systems,” explains José Damián Ferrer, Head of Department of Telecommunications and Systems of the Canary Islands Government.

In such a large organization, it is normal to have many platforms, but with independent silos, the chances of an attacker finding a security hole are increased. "That is why multilayer security is so necessary that it covers the entire network and allows the fluid exchange of information and understanding between the different platforms”, says Ferrer.

"Having the least possible number of solutions that are integrated is key and this is where the added value of Trend Micro resides. We only need two people to manage the entire platform."

José Damián Ferrer
Head of Department of Telecommunications
and Systems of the Canary Islands Government

This project consisted of several phases and elements. When a new solution to be secured is identified, the Executive published the specifications and tendered to move forward in the implementation of tools, making it a requirement that the new solutions be integrated with the previous ones.

The Canarian Administration was already operating with Trend Micro solutions. The company continues to work with Trend Micro as new features and solutions are required, making the upgrade, new implementation, and maintenance relatively easy.

“You have to have many protections, so it is important to insist on the premise that less is more. Having the least possible number of solutions that are integrated is key and this is where the added value of Trend Micro resides. In addition to its versatility and the savings it provides, we only need two people to manage the entire platform,” says Ferrer.

"I am struck by the evolution of [Apex One] and the effort that Trend Micro is making so that it is not limited to being just a protector of malware attacks."

José Damián Ferrer
Head of Department of Telecommunications
and Systems of the Canary Islands Government

The diversity of the IT infrastructure of the Government meant that having security firewalls was not enough, as there were many layers to protect. In the different phases of the security process, Trend Micro has been in charge of deploying protection for mobiles and tablets, protection for endpoints and servers, data analysis, APT and vulnerabilities, virtual patching, IPS protection / IDS, analysis of web and network traffic, as well as peripheral centers.

The deployment of Apex One, Deep Security, Deep Discovery, and TippingPoint, provided effective, flexible, and comprehensive security to combat the growing sophistication of threats while complying with the requirements demanded by such a heterogeneous network. At the same time, it has managed to facilitate management and accelerate response time with centralized visibility and control and automatic sharing of information about threats between security layers, adding intelligence to the Executive‘s system.

The Government Telecommunications and Systems team specified that, as in any technological project, there are challenges to be overcome without interrupting service. “This has been possible thanks to the good technical support they have given us at all times. We have felt permanently accompanied, making all the pieces of the puzzle fit to achieve our safety objectives.”

With this project, synergies and a fusion of technologies have been identified. The Government has a coherent and connected security that covers all attack vectors, thanks to Trend Micro Apex One endpoint protection. This automated and detailed protection goes beyond traditional antivirus to provide the detection, response, and investigation of threats with a single agent. In addition, the system connects with the rest of security solutions (i.e. mail, network, IPS) to block unknown threats in the sandbox and share this intelligence with the rest of the products.

“I am struck by the evolution of this tool and the effort that Trend Micro is making so that it is not limited to being just a protector of malware attacks. The fact that the endpoint has certain products and manage them from a single tool that allows you to control up to software versions without installing other applications on the PC, which would overload it, is really efficient”, says Ferrer.

The Executive now has a powerful tool to detect threats, perform advanced analysis, and block functions in the sandbox with the Trend Micro Deep Discovery solution. Protection against unpatched vulnerabilities is provided by the Virtual Patching functionality of Trend Micro Deep Security.

In its commitment to security adapted to the new demands of the environment, the Canary Islands Government now has a scalable, flexible, intelligent and easily manageable architecture that allows users to access the network and connect from anywhere.

“We really like the proposal offered by Trend Micro and we are very satisfied with the results”, says the director. “Simplicity of management, versatility to cover the heterogeneity of the network, and ability to integrate with third-party manufacturers were, and are, our conditions. In Trend Micro we have found the perfect ally.“