Almac Group consolidates cybersecurity infrastructure with Check Point Software

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., a global provider of cyber security solutions, has announced that Almac Group, an international pharmaceutical company, has upgraded its cybersecurity defenses with Check Point solutions across its network, cloud environments, and endpoints. Almac Group now has a fully consolidated infrastructure for advanced threat prevention thanks to the deployment of Check Point Quantum Security Gateways, Quantum IoT Protect, CloudGuard Network Security, and Harmony Connect.

Almac Group, headquartered in Northern Ireland, is a pharmaceutical and biotech development and manufacturing firm. It employs over 6,000 people in the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore, Japan, Denmark, and Sweden. Almac Group faced new cybersecurity challenges as a result of the pandemic and the global shift to remote and hybrid working, including increased demand for VPN connectivity and throughput. Almac Group also relies on a complex network of mission-critical manufacturing and laboratory technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), operational technology (OT), and others.

“These technologies were difficult to secure even prior to the pandemic because of their age, architecture, or sensitivity,” said Stephen Park, Principal Security Information Specialist for Almac Group. “However, the issue was exacerbated during the pandemic as more and more malicious actors targeted remote offices and devices. During this time, we were also opening new locations that needed safe connectivity to the Internet and corporate resources. We even moved on-premises email to cloud-based Microsoft 365 and began migrating development workloads into AWS. All these changes happened at a faster pace and highlighted an urgent need for more security functionality and flexibility. We needed to extend robust security, scale protection of our IoT environments, and consolidate management with better visibility. For this, we turned to Check Point and have now gained a dynamic edge against advanced threats.”

Check Point has consolidated and simplified Almac Group’s security infrastructure, and the company now offers advanced threat prevention across the board. Almac Group has implemented the following solutions:

• Check Point Quantum Security Gateway clusters to secure the network and deliver up to 1.5 Tbps of threat prevention performance with on-demand scalability. Quantum DLP (data loss prevention) and compliance blades help Almac Group protect privileged data while ensuring adherence to compliance requirements.
• Check Point CloudGuard Network Security to provide advanced threat prevention and automated security for Almac Group’s cloud assets. Data is protected from the most sophisticated, fifth generation attacks. Automation supports rapid deployment and automation of developer CI/CD workflows, while unified management makes it fast and easy for the security team to ensure consistent policy across on-premises and cloud environments.
• Check Point Quantum IoT Protect to enable zero-trust protection for Almac Group’s IoT/OT/ICS/SCADA environments. Quantum IoT Protect identifies all IoT devices on the network and assesses their risk. It prevents unauthorized access to and from these devices through zero-trust segmentation, and it blocks threats to IoT devices. Zero-trust policy and run-time protection can be tailored per device—securing them from the moment they first connect to the network.
• Check Point Harmony Connect to provide the same level of threat prevention, access control, and data protection to Almac Group’s remote users and branches without requiring local perimeter firewalls. Sites connect to the Internet and corporate cloud assets through a third-party SD-WAN solution integrated with Harmony Connect. Almac Group gains centralized control and visibility over access and data while ensuring up-to-date security with high performance.

Rupal Hollenbeck, Chief Commercial Officer at Check Point Software said: “We’re thrilled to enable Almac Group to gain advanced protection against known and even emerging threats, such as the Log4j vulnerability. At the same time, Check Point’s innovative cloud-based solution gives them single-pane-of-glass visibility, eliminating the need to juggle multiple solutions across their remote locations, network and Internet connections, and many specialized IoT devices.”