Case Study | MidCoast Council Implements Check Point Infinity Platform

MidCoast Council turned to the Check Point Infinity Platform to unify and enhance its cybersecurity across 195 localities. Following a merger, the Council needed to secure critical infrastructure while streamlining IT operations. By leveraging Check Point’s advanced security solutions, they achieved a scalable, future-ready defense strategy. Read the case study to learn more.

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MidCoast Council Implements Check Point Infinity Platform For Consistent and Holistic Security with Great Success

INDUSTRY Government

OVERVIEW The Council provides administration for local government entities, critical infrastructure and citizen services across 195 localities, serving approximately 95,000 residents and spanning 10,000 square kilometers.

HEADQUARTERS New South Wales, Australia

COMPANY SIZE 501-1,000 Employees

OUR SOLUTION

Check Point Infinity Platform allows us to evolve our security without having to know all of our requirements ahead of time. We immediately secured our critical infrastructure with the most advanced security humanly possible. At the same time, we can add and adapt our solutions to meet the needs we know are coming later. Mike Nelson, Coordinator IT Infrastructure, MidCoast Council

CHALLENGE MidCoast Council was formed as a result of the merger of three city councils and the area’s water and wastewater utility. At the time, each organization had its own IT and security infrastructure composed of multivendor solutions and disparate processes. Now as a unified organization, MidCoast Council needed to immediately secure critical infrastructure while it set about defining a longer-term security roadmap.

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MIDCOAST COUNCIL CASE STUDY 2

”Right off, we needed to secure assets as we developed a consolidated approach to managing security moving forward,” said Mike Nelson, Coordinator IT Infrastructure for MidCoast Council. “Our goal was to simplify a complex infrastructure and ensure consistency across the unified environment while having the flexibility to adapt over time.”

The IT network connects 80 sites, such as district offices, citizen services centers and critical infrastructure plants, primarily using a private microwave radio network. Other sites connect to the network via 4G or virtual private network (VPN) links. Services are delivered from a primary data center with a secondary data center providing backup and disaster recovery capabilities. In addition to more than 1,100 internal users and external contractors, the IT team supports nine communication towers, approximately 30 vCenter hosts, 250 virtual machines, 200 desktop PCs, 1,000 mobile devices and 600 Windows laptops.

“We needed a holistic, consistent security solution,” said Nelson. “We were looking for single-pane-of-glass management and flexibility to support immediate and future deployments without disruption. We selected a Check Point partner, the S5 Technology Group, to help us achieve our goals.”

SOLUTION As a valued Check Point Partner, S5 Technology Group provides enterprise system integration and managed services focused on data centers, networks and security — primarily to government, education and large enterprise customers. The S5 team brought extensive expertise in the Check Point security portfolio to MidCoast Council. Together, the teams began the process of consolidating multiple data centers and securing the unified infrastructure.

“We recommended the Check Point Infinity architecture,” said Guy Coble, Principal Architect Data Center, Network & Security, for S5 Technology Group. “With a small team and complex requirements, MidCoast Council needed unified management with visibility across the total environment. The Infinity Enterprise License Agreement was the perfect fit — enabling them to have the best security and meet their needs for manageability and deployment flexibility.”

Infinity Platform has given us a holistic overview of sites, services and network security. It integrates easily with our other tools, saving time. It has made us f eel more secure and allowed us as a small t eam to secure every thing — including multiple gateways — in a singl e pane of glass. Mike Nelson, Coordinator IT Infrastructure, MidCoast Council

http://www.checkpoint.com

MIDCOAST COUNCIL CASE STUDY 3

MidCoast Council deployed Check Point Quantum Security Gateways for network edge security in the main office and to secure segmented traffic at local sites. With Quantum Security Gateways, MidCoast Council automatically benefits from Check Point ThreatCloud AI, which keeps customers’ networks fully informed about the newest evasive threats and delivers immediate cyber security verdicts and updates to protect an organization’s digital assets. The teams also upgraded security in the primary data center using Check Point Quantum Lightspeed for up to 3 Tbps throughput with ultra-low latency. Quantum Lightspeed provides firewall services for the organization’s internal corporate networks.

“The single most effective solution for us so far has been the Quantum Security Gateways,” said Aaron Beard, Senior Network Administrator for MidCoast Council. “We’ve relied extensively on several key features. Identity awareness capabilities give us granular visibility of users, groups and machines to support critical water quality and wastewater management operations. Remote access VPN features were vital during the pandemic, and intrusion prevention system (IPS) significantly boosted protection of networks and servers.”

Check Point Harmony Endpoint protects the organization’s PCs and laptops, preventing the most imminent threats to endpoints across the environment. MidCoast Council also chose Check Point Infinity Managed Prevention & Response MDR/MPR for 24x7x365 security infrastructure monitoring by Check Point elite experts. Infinity MDR/MPR enables the council to prevent, monitor, detect, investigate and remediate attacks with a single solution.

“Implementation went smoothly,” said Coble. “In spite of numerous moving parts, MidCoast Council successfully consolidated everything to the Infinity architecture with no downtime.”

OUCOME The MidCoast Council IT team now has a comprehensive security solution stack at its fingertips. The Infinity architecture met their requirements, providing everything needed to secure their environments.

“Check Point Infinity allows us to evolve our security without having to know all of our requirements ahead of time,” said Nelson. “We immediately secured our critical infrastructure with the most advanced security humanly possible. At the same time, we can add and adapt our solutions to meet the needs we know are coming later.”

http://www.checkpoint.com

MIDCOAST COUNCIL CASE STUDY 4

ABOUT CHECK POINT Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. is the trusted cybersecurity solutions provider for over 100,000 SMBs, corporate enterprises and governments globally. With an industry-leading catch rate for zero-day, ransomware and generation V cyberattacks, Check Point Infinity’s unified platform delivers unparalleled threat visibility, intelligence and prevention across enterprise environments — from remote users and cloud deployments to network perimeters and data centers. Together, our solutions work seamlessly to drive productivity, reduce costs and enable real-time security monitoring.

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U.S. Headquarters 959 Skyway Road, Suite 300, San Carlos, CA 94070 | Tel: 1-800-429-4391

www.checkpoint.com

A comprehensive solution stack also enables MidCoast Council to ensure industry-leading security capabilities across data centers, endpoints and remote locations. Infinity MDR/MPR is delivering extensive threat intelligence, giving the team deep threat insight.

“Check Point has helped us evolve our level of security maturity as defined by the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s Essential Eight security framework,” said Beard. “Infinity increased our security performance — in throughput and protection — in ways that other vendors couldn’t.”

Consolidated management and logging make it easy for the MidCoast Council IT team to see the entire infrastructure. As a collaborative environment, all Check Point Infinity solutions integrate seamlessly, allowing the team to work together.

“Infinity has given us a holistic overview of sites, services and network security,” said Nelson. “It integrates easily with our other tools, saving time. It has made us feel more secure and allowed us as a small team to secure everything — including multiple gateways — in a single pane of glass.”

Right after the merger, there were multiple sites to secure and challenges to overcome. With the Infinity architecture, the teams quickly replaced firewalls in network communication towers, as well as for the water and wastewater operations networks.

“Infinity gives us complete flexibility,” said Nelson. “Going forward, we can easily adapt protection as we need it. For example, we’re migrating email to Microsoft 365 in the cloud. We’ll be able to extend Zero Trust to new areas of our network. Future cloud deployments will be protected. Check Point provides us with the comprehensive, consolidated, collaborative approach needed to secure whatever comes next.”

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Case Study | MidCoast Council Implements Check Point Infinity Platform

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