Playtech

As one of the world’s largest online gaming platforms, Playtech provides best-of-breed games and gaming services – such as casino, live casino, bingo, poker, and sports betting – across channels around the world. In a highly regulated industry, a seamless, secure experience is crucial for online gaming. Playtech must not only avoid service disruptions but also meet strict compliance requirements. That’s why Playtech relies on Trend Micro to ensure that its networks, production environments, and endpoints are fully protected without causing downtime.

Playtech is a pioneer in omnichannel gambling, which offers operators and their customers a uniform experience across any product, channel (online, mobile, retail), or device using a single account and wallet. It’s critical to ensure security protection and service continuity across Playtech’s entire distributed IT ecosystem, which includes thousands of servers, virtual machines, and containers that run Playtech’s gaming systems.

Playtech also needs to meet strict compliance requirements and is subject to dozens of annual audits by external organizations in each of its operational districts.

“It’s a difficult combination. We face the same level of regulation banks do, and every gambling jurisdiction has its own rules. On the other hand, we need to be innovative and provide technical superiority over our rivals because competition in this industry is fierce,” says Daniel Liber, chief security officer at Playtech.

When looking to bolster its existing security systems, Playtech invited several security providers to conduct a proof-of-concept (POC) project that simulated a cyberattack against its systems.

“Trend Micro was the leader in the POC. They definitely came out on top,” says Liber.

But Playtech’s ultimate decision to go with Trend Micro went beyond technical considerations—the differentiator was the human factor.

“We formed a very good relationship with the Trend Micro sales and account management teams. The support and communication they offered us were important and played a large part in our decision to select Trend Micro,” says Liber.

Playtech selected Trend Micro™ Deep Security™ Software to protect its hybrid-cloud workloads and automatically detect vulnerabilities, malware, and unauthorized changes. Deep Security Software’s virtual patching capabilities, intrusion prevention system (IPS), and integrity checks are critical features from both a security and compliance perspective.

"Virtual patching caught our eye and convinced us to select Trend Micro. Patching across such a big environment can be very complicated. Deep Security Software virtual patching is a game changer."

Daniel Liber
Chief Security Officer
Playtech

Many of the regulations Playtech must meet specifically require IPS and integrity checks on its production systems. Because it includes those features, Deep Security helps Playtech achieve and maintain regulatory and compliance requirements.

Trend Micro Premium Support has been instrumental in helping Playtech make the most of its Deep Security Software implementation. With its 24/7 emergency assistance from Trend Micro support technicians, Premium Support brings Liber and his team peace of mind.

"The cycle of communication with Premium Support is extremely fast. You cannot put a price tag on that. It’s tremendously important to us."

Daniel Liber
Chief Security Officer
Playtech

Since implementing Deep Security Software, Playtech has seen significant increases in security coverage for the company’s production environment. Deep Security Software virtual patching has reduced the time spent dealing with patching issues by approximately 40%, allowing the team to spend time on other critical activities. Deep Security Software has also helped Playtech bolster its intrusion prevention efforts by reducing false positives and missed incidents by approximately 50%, resulting in more accurate information and reducing the “noise” that IT staff must address.

Additionally, Deep Security Software improved Playtech’s reporting, enhancing the company’s audit response. Many audits require the company to prepare and share detailed reports and dashboards. With Deep Security Software, Playtech can produce those reports much faster and provide greater detail, enabling the company to easily drill down into the data to answer in-depth questions if required.

Improved reporting capabilities also allow Playtech to respond to security alerts much faster.

“Information coming from the alerts, including instructions on what to do and where the issue is, is very clear with Deep Security Software. We don’t need to do an in-depth investigation ourselves around those alerts. We can easily see and understand what the issue is and how it’s been addressed,” says Liber.

Playtech is currently considering further containerization of its services, which could present new security challenges. The company is working with Trend Micro to strategize how Trend Micro services and platforms can help protect Playtech throughout their digital transformation.