GuocoLand builds a unified security foundation

SUMMARY

GuocoLand is a leading real estate group that is focused on its twin engines of growth—property investment and property development. GuocoLand has a strong track record in creating distinctive, integrated mixed-use developments and premium residential properties across Singapore, China, and Malaysia. GuocoLand’s end-to-end capabilities span across the real estate value chain, from planning and design, property investment, property development, and property management to asset management. With growing emphasis on expanding their footprint in commercial spaces, GuocoLand recognized the need to strengthen their technology footprint, with a larger focus on cybersecurity. Melvin Ong, Head of Technology wanted to ensure that the IT team supported the strategy and business transformation within the organization by protecting the increasing amount of data at their commercial spaces.

RESULTS

90%

reduction in MTTD and MTTR

30 hours

reduction in man hours

~S$1M

operational cost savings

challenges

Legacy tools and disparate security solutions

Lean security team that managed both IT infrastructure and security.
Legacy tools, tool bloat and appliance sprawl, affecting performance across individual endpoints, and limiting visibility and data management.
Inadequate detection and response capabilities: manual alert investigation to determine veracity of threats.
Lacked a unified single pane of glass, making them less efficient while responding to threats, due to the different protocols and mechanisms in the various countries. control to monitor their cloud accounts and protect the entire application stack.

"The user experience and interface of Cortex XDR is exceptional, allowing us to easily navigate and digest reports. With this solution, we also have extensive visibility into our security stack and our data lake, helping us triage and investigate alerts for response and remediation action."

Melvin Ong

Head of Technology,
GuocoLand

SOLUTION

Single-vendor strategy builds network and endpoint security, unifies data

Having experienced a few incidents with their legacy tools, where patterns of potential breaches were not detected, GuocoLand was on the lookout for a solution that could that could detect threats on the endpoint automatically, using the latest in AI detection technology. GuocoLand had already deployed Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) from Palo Alto Networks and were realizing the benefits of its powerful capabilities. Besides the existing relationship, Cortex XDR was a recognized leader in the 2024 Gartner^® Magic Quadrant^™ for Endpoint Protection Platforms (EPP), which led to Cortex XDR being a top contender for GuocoLand. Additionally, a major reason for GuocoLand’s partnership with Palo Alto Networks is Palo Alto Networks capabilities around internet of things (IoT), data loss prevention (DLP), and artificial intelligence (AI).

With Cortex XDR, any unauthorized activities, anomalies, unlicensed and unsanctioned software are detected immediately. In fact, Ong conducted a random ransomware test on his own machine, unbeknownst to his team, Palo Alto Networks, and their MDR partner, and says, “In under 20 minutes, I received a phone call from the SOC team that there was an anomaly on my laptop. If this were to happen a year ago, I am not confident that it would have been detected as quickly.” By relying on a single provider, there is seamless integration as the information does not need to be extracted and organized from separate consoles. “Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR helps unify data pulled, analyze all traffic, and aids the team in making informed decisions,” Ong reiterates. By gathering information from a unified, singular platform, GuocoLand is more efficient in responding to threats.

Speaking about the association with DeltaSpike, Ong says, “DeltaSpike saves us an immense amount of time and effort by combing through all the data gathered. This has resulted in us having better efficiency and it has reduced the overall risk of missing out on any alerts.”

“Our patented AI technology and Cortex XDR significantly reduces the mean time to detect and respond to threats. Coupled with specially tailored offerings for GuocoLand, we take pride in ensuring the safety and security of our customers,” elaborates Ruvimal Senanayake, Head of Technical SOC lead at DeltaSpike.

Impactful reductions in alerts and resourcing

Post deployment of Cortex XDR, there have been significant reductions in GuocoLand’s MTTD from 24 hours to 2 hours and MTTR from 48 hours to 4 hours. Additionally, GuocoLand has seen a 50% reduction in the volume of alerts. Manual investigations are now a thing of the past, freeing up time for their team to focus on more pertinent tasks, as all the heavy lifting is now done by Cortex XDR, assisted by DeltaSpike. The significant reductions in MTTD, MTTR, and alert volume have given GuocoLand the confidence that Cortex XDR was the right solution for their organization, and that all threats will be detected and resolved in a timely manner.

In addition, with the reduced alert volume, the number of hours that GuocoLand has to spend investigating alerts has now reduced by 30 man hours per month. This was possible by combining Cortex XDR and DeltaSpike’s MDR services.
~S$1 million savings in operational costs

Cortex XDR was rolled out to cover GuocoLand’s offices in Singapore, Malaysia, and China for increased coverage and consistency in security.

Despite the increased coverage, GuocoLand has not had to increase their manpower to manage Cortex XDR. According to Ong, if they had to hire additional people to maintain the security for the three locations, it would have meant an additional investment of between S$800,000 to S$1 million.
Audit and regulatory compliance aided by comprehensive reports

With Palo Alto Networks solutions, Melvin and his team are now able to take a proactive approach to security. In fact, with the new consistency in security policies and the threat detection capabilities of Cortex XDR, there have been instances in which Melvin’s team have been able to flag potential threats to the audit and compliance departments. This has resulted in improved compliance and increased assurance to the company’s leadership that GuocoLand has a robust and secure cybersecurity posture.

CONCLUSION

GuocoLand has plans to expand their Property Technology (PropTech) pillar, alongside application, infrastructure, and cybersecurity, which Palo Alto Networks would be able to help support given the wide range of products and capabilities. Melvin believes that the products developed by Palo Alto Networks will go a long way in laying the foundation for the company to have a robust cybersecurity posture. He says, “Achieving single pane-of-glass visibility is a future state for us at GuocoLand, and we have been able to attain this for endpoint security with Cortex XDR. We are keen on exploring the full suite of Network Security solutions from Palo Alto Networks and this will definitely be a force multiplier for us, as we will deploy the same platform across all our offices. This will enable us to have best-of-breed security along with consistency.”

Find out more about NGFW and Cortex XDR.

ABOUT DELTASPIKE

DeltaSpike is a leading cybersecurity company headquartered in Singapore. We provide cutting-edge solutions to safeguard businesses against cyber threats. Partnering with Palo Alto Networks, DeltaSpike is a leading managed security service provider (MSSP) in the region. DeltaSpike’s platform is built on Cortex XDR and the company is the managed detection and response (MDR) partner of choice for many customers in the region. Our team of cybersecurity experts has extensive experience and offers a comprehensive suite of services, including threat detection, hunting, response, intelligence and security operations centre setup. DeltaSpike’s success is due to its experienced team, secure technology partnerships and commitment to delivering results.