Case Study / Legal / State & Local Government

How Utah State Bar Transforms their Visibility and Compliance Reporting with Adlumin

Challenges

  • Previous SIEM solution required Utah State Bar to do the heavy lifting with little to no support.
  • Seeking a Security Operations Platform to protect 15,000 member attorneys, 60 employees, and five subtenants.
  • Partial visibility to end-user traffic within their network.
  • Needed a product that provided easy reporting capabilities for stakeholders.

Results

Serving and Protecting Over 15,000 Members

Utah State Bar is a regulatory organization for licensing attorneys, established in 1931 and headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. They provide alternative services to licensing through the state for attorneys. The Utah State Bar currently protects around 60 employees and five subtenants within their building and serves its 15,000 members and licensees. Each subtenant is its own organization with an affiliation to the Utah State Bar in one form or another. Many fulfill needs from a modest means or pro bono standpoint for civilians.

Previous Solution Closed its Doors

Utah State Bar’s IT team consists of two employees, with David Clark as the Director of IT in search of a solution that would provide 100% transparency and visibility into their network, which is currently on-prem, outside of Office 365. In July 2021, their previous solution sold their intellectual property to a larger company closing its doors. This prompted their team to hunt for a new solution to meet the needs of their IT team, leadership, and the attorneys they serve. Prior to Adlumin, Utah State Bar worked with a Managed Service Provider that required their team to do all the heavy lifting while providing only partial visibility. They were working with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) technology and were expected to become experts and understand their system without much guidance. Additionally, their team was limited in reporting and logging capabilities, with only little managed detection and response capabilities available.

— David Clark Director of IT at Utah State Bar

“They [Adlumin’s competitors] have really great platforms, but at the end of the day, they are not providing any visibility. You are really depending on them to provide that information back to you. Because they don’t give you a way to see it.”

Vendor Selection with Advice from Trustworthy Experts

Utah State Bar needed a platform they could manage without complications and did not create extra work on their team. On the hunt for a new solution, Utah State Bar looked at many companies in hopes of identifying their must-haves. They wanted a solution that included comprehensive monitoring, analysis, and insights backed by a team of cybersecurity experts, in addition to behavior mapping for every user and entity (servers, desktops, and laptops) in their environment that is logged and monitored for behavioral changes.

“We were looking for some alternatives. I had talked to a couple of companies, and it really came down to the same thing, none of them provided any visibility, and it was going to cost me a lot more money than even I was spending with our [previous solution].”

– David Clark, Director of IT at Utah State Bar

Their IT team was approached by a long-time colleague within the cybersecurity industry to consider what Adlumin’s Security Operations Platform platform had to offer. After Utah State Bar’s exposure to the platform, they immediately saw the value and the powerful visibility they were looking for.

“It definitely meets expectations and, in many ways, exceeds those expectations. I think the one thing that I appreciate is that Adlumin is constantly upgrading the system.”

– David Clark, Director of IT at Utah State Bar

Every IP Address is Logged, and Compliance is Met

Adlumin supports Utah State Bar’s need to log every type of activity within their network, giving them 100% visibility. And at the same time, it offers global threat intelligence and expertise with the ability to scan incoming data across firewalls, VPN servers, and network security appliances using the world’s largest crowd-sourced portal.

“Every IP address that I have here, outside of a printer and a phone, are on the Adlumin platform. So, I am getting logs, I am getting information from firewalls, my switches, my workstations, my servers, some of apps, Office 365…etc.”

– David Clark, Director of IT at Utah State Bar

In addition, Utah State Bar knows that the regulations the American Bar Association (ABA) issues provide a minimum standard for the industry, which is why they turned to Adlumin for more robust protection. With Adlumin’s one-touch compliance reporting and monitoring, Utah State Bar is given instant access to ensure and prove compliance against any standard or customer requirement. More frequently, teams are asked to use data-driven processes to improve cyber risk maturity or show regulatory compliance, which is where Adlumin comes in. Utah State Bar is able to see where misconfigurations or deviations from policy threaten their compliance or security posture.

“So literally from a logging standpoint and from a visibility standpoint, active directory. I have the visibility and capability to see what’s going on.”

– David Clark, Director of IT at Utah State Bar

Communication Made Easy with Stakeholders

Like most IT teams, Utah State Bar has executives and stakeholders they need to report to. Adlumin’s platform is designed to help Utah State Bar take command of its network by providing one-touch reporting capabilities tailored to their needs and the needs of stakeholders. Reports are available whenever they are needed within a user-friendly module. Clark states, “Personally, this helped me communicate with my Executive Director, who is not an expert at any of this.” Cybersecurity is highly complex, which is why Adlumin’s reports are designed to accommodate audiences of all comprehension levels.

“I get my reports every Monday morning. I have the ability to go back to leadership and show them what’s going on and what’s happening on our network. It is easy enough to read.”

– David Clark, Director of IT at Utah State Bar

Becoming an Adlumin Champion

Utah State Bar became an advocate for Security Operations Platform to achieve change—specifically change for better protection—with other leaders and organizations within their industry. Their team knows how important it is to keep their organization and attorney data safe, so they communicate with local organizations to exchange industry knowledge and discuss different solutions in the market. Utah State Bar wanted to share their improvements in their security posture working with Adlumin. Among Clark’s many industry relationships, he worked with two organizations in Utah to switch their platform and services over to Adlumin. A win for their industry is a win for all regarding top-tier cybersecurity protection of data.

Continued Learning with Consistent Enhancements

Organizations within the legal industry, in many ways, are the town hall of our economy, bringing together businesses and investors, navigating complex law proceedings, assessing compliance for regulatory bodies, filing IP and trademark applications, and interpreting statutes for clients. They are one-stop shops for profitable data for cybercriminals. Legal organizations must consistently evaluate their security posture and keep up with industry knowledge, as Utah State Bar does, to determine where their gaps lie. When technology is advancing every day, Adlumin does not only work as a platform but as a resource for all organizations. Clark says, “The one thing I appreciate Adlumin for is that it gives me that opportunity to learn something new every day. Especially if you go into some of the different modules, there is a learning center to learn the platform better. There are different tools that have monitoring. There is always something new.”

Adlumin’s Security Operations Platform and experts do not stay static. Enhancements are consistently being released to stay updated with the ever-changing threat landscape. Adlumin’s cloud-native platform leverages powerful machine learning to automate remediation rules and system updates, identify critical threats, and provide continuous compliance reporting. All while being backed by cybersecurity experts delivering 24×7 human insights for proactive results.

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About Adlumin 

What you can’t see poses the greatest risk to your organization. Your exposures lurk in the cloud, hybrid environments, and the darknet. There are countless gaps where threats can hide before they lead to business disrupting events like ransomware shutdowns or massive data breaches.   

Adlumin Inc. is a patented, cloud-native Security Operations Platform plus Managed Detection and Response Services. The platform focuses on advanced cyber threats, system vulnerabilities, and sprawling IT operations to command greater visibility, stop threats, reduce business risk, and automate compliance. The command center for security operations, Adlumin leverages powerful machine learning, identifies critical threats, orchestrates auto-remediation system updates, and provides live continuous compliance reporting. Don’t let your IT organization be caught in the dark.    

Illuminate Threats, Eliminate Risks, and Command Authority with Adlumin. 

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