With global cyberattacks constantly in the news, financial institutions, both big and small, cannot put a high enough premium on the security of their data.
Nikki Byers, IT specialist at First United National (FUN) Bank in Fryburg, Pennsylvania, has plenty of experience in navigating her bank through the peaks and valleys of cybersecurity. Byers helped create and deploy the bank’s internal network back in 1999.
“When we first started the network, it was totally enclosed,” Byers says. “For example, we had a very specific access list in our router that contained websites we were permitted to visit.”
Over time, evolving technology led to a more complex network at FUN. And as the bank’s network grew in both size and complexity, managing the network internally became increasingly challenging. To offset the cost, time and stress that come with internal IT management, the bank began looking for a technology partner that could help handle its increasing network and security responsibilities.
“As our network grew, the emphasis on the security aspects of managing our customers’ information increased, as well as having to meet regulatory expectations,” Byers says. “These things led to our decision to begin using CSI Managed Services.”
Challenge
Facing a growing number of IT tasks and increasing cybersecurity concerns, FUN Bank needed help managing its network and security responsibilities.
Solution
The bank turned to CSI Managed Services to handle the performance, security, and monitoring functions of its firewall, network devices and VMware environments.
Result
CSI Managed Services provides top-notch security at the network level, as well as enhanced levels of alerting and remediation. It also provides log analysis that saves the bank hours per week.
Reliable Alerts and Performance Monitoring
FUN went live with CSI’s managed services in March 2017, at which point CSI began administering FUN’s firewall, as well as managing the performance and security of multiple network devices and VMware servers. Byers says the bank experienced a smooth transition to these outsourced solutions, and has not encountered any performance issues since flipping the switch.
She credits CSI Managed Services with relieving a lot of the pressure and stress from worrying about IT performance, because rather than having to monitor and manage the bank’s network performance on her own, CSI provides her with information the bank didn’t have when managing cybersecurity internally.
Byers receives alerts if there is an issue with network performance, such as a power outage or memory allocation error. And in the case of a potential cyberattack, she is set up to receive notifications that include specific details, like the IP address and type of malware that the cyber criminal is using.
“We just didn’t have that level of alerting before. But we do now,” Byers says.
Gaining a Reporting Edge
Byers takes full advantage of CSI’s Enterprise Data Gateway Environment (EDGE) tool, an online portal available to CSI customers. EDGE offers around-the-clock insight on the health and safety of the bank’s entire IT environment.
EDGE’s dashboard enables Byers to see an overview of all the managed services to which FUN subscribes, as well as customized panels that provide a high-level look at everything going on in the bank’s network. She can track FUN’s service tickets and progress on any open projects, and set up reports that automatically generate monthly.
“EDGE makes it much faster to build queries and manage things on the employee level, as opposed to querying the server outside the portal for what I needed—which is what I was doing before,” says Byers.
Speaking of queries, logging is another task that CSI Managed Services has made infinitely easier for Byers. As the lone IT specialist at FUN, Byers used to sift through server logs manually in order to clear up security matters and other IT-related issues, including login errors, email issues and active directory errors throughout the bank—but not anymore.
“I used to spend at least four hours every week combing through server logs to find locked-out users and other things related to security,” Byers says. “Now, I’ve set up alerts within the EDGE portal that give me the information I need regarding user activity. Being able to rely on CSI has given me back those hours.”
Security Peace of Mind
There is no such thing as a completely comfortable IT specialist. A vast majority of them, including Byers, subscribe to the “it’s not a matter of if there is an attack, but when” school of cybersecurity though, so she constantly remains vigilant.
She says the bank has much more confidence in its security posture now than it did before, thanks to the security expertise and protection it has with CSI.
“The peace of mind CSI Managed Services provides is wonderful, and I take comfort knowing someone is always watching and monitoring FUN’s network,” she says. “We have confidence that we will be alerted right away if there is an active attempt to hack into our network, and we know CSI will do whatever they need to do to stop the attempt immediately, and then work with us after the fact to figure out what happened.”
Focusing on Customers and the Community
Not having to spend so much time, money and resources on IT opens up FUN to focus on the things—like its approach to customer service and devotion to the community—that have made the institution a pillar of Clarion County, Pennsylvania since 1909.
“I feel like we’re always covered with CSI,” Byers says. “Instead of hiring one or two security people to actively monitor and patrol our systems, we rely on CSI to take care of everything.”