Cloud SIEM powers DevSecOps

With a broad portfolio of SaaS-based software products, Ascential runs a large amount of infrastructure on AWS with smaller footprints on Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

The company wanted to ensure its security, DevOps and operational management tools were providing the right level of security to protect the data that resides across Ascential’s multi-cloud environment. Obtaining real-time security insights across the company’s ecosystem was a top priority. This central visibility and early detection of security incidents was also essential to the company from a governance and regulatory standpoint.

Ascential adopted Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM as a critical component of the company’s policies, processes and tools that protect its environment. “Sumo Logic Cloud SIEM is an important part of our security practices. It enables us to demonstrate, as an organization, that we take security seriously and that we’re always creating an environment that is safe for ourselves and our customers,” said Sean Harley, EVP & CIO at Ascential.

Empowering the SOC team’s security insights and threat hunting

Ascential has wide-ranging tools in its security stack and each includes a range of disparate logging and monitoring capabilities. Through Cloud SIEM’s support for ingesting data from a variety of tools, the platform aggregates Ascential’s security technologies and enriches logs to provide central security monitoring and contextualized insights. As a result, Ascential’s 24/7 multi-regional SOC team is equipped with the information they need to quickly identify issues and act on them.

“We’ve improved our time to detect issues and our capability to respond to alerts using Cloud SIEM, which allows us to effectively cut through all the noise we see across our estate and advance our security posture. The platform is also essential for our threat hunting practice and equips our SOC team with a proactive approach to identify and respond to threats,” said Harley.

Demonstrating brand trust for customers

With Cloud SIEM in place serving as the backbone of the SOC team’s visibility into security issues, Ascential can demonstrate robust security practices to its customers and auditors. Likewise, through the platform’s central dashboards, the team has captured robust visibility and governance across its many security tools.

“Cloud SIEM is a big part of our demonstrating strong security practices for our internal and external audits, as well as showing that we’re securing our environment to keep customer data safe,” said Harley, adding that “this also builds trust in our brand and is an element that’s part of our RFPs and sales process.”

Cloud SIEM enables DevSecOps journey

Since adopting Cloud SIEM, Ascential’s security practices have expanded from the SOC team to include considerations for security as part of the software development and business operations. This has empowered Ascential to incorporate security into the software development lifecycle and to instill a culture of security through awareness training of the company’s engineering team and general staff.

“We’re combining awareness and tooling on our journey to move to DevSecOps, and the Cloud SIEM capabilities really help us move this journey forward. Sumo Logic is at the heart of our DevSecOps strategy to bring security central into the application development functions and give us the data for our decision making,” said Harley.

Realizing full value through a strong vendor relationship

As with all technology investments, Ascential needs to get full value from their Cloud SIEM platform. As one of Ascential’s strategic partners, Sumo Logic embraces this goal and works closely with the SOC team to perform regular health checks and recommend areas where new features can benefit the company.

“Our partnership with Sumo Logic is a win-win from my perspective. With Sumo, we can demonstrate to our Board and finance teams that we are getting true value from our product purchase,” said Harvey.