Transforming Bank Midwest’s Cybersecurity and Over $1 Billion in Asset Protection

Protecting $1.3 Billion in Assets 

Bank Midwest, a longstanding community bank headquartered in Spirit Lake, Iowa, has served multiple states for 142 years. With assets totaling $1.3 billion and a workforce of 200 employees, the bank operates on a hybrid model catering to its diverse customers, including farmers, small business owners, professionals, entrepreneurs, and community leaders. 

The community bank offers its members an extensive range of financial services, including checking and savings accounts, personal and commercial insurance, financial planning and investment services, trust services, estate planning, loans, lines of credit, and mortgages.  

Additionally, their online and mobile banking services provide conveniences such as account management, bill payments, and fund transfers 24×7. To ensure these services are secure, a dedicated team of three cybersecurity professionals continually monitor and safeguard the bank’s critical infrastructure and sensitive information, giving employees and customers peace of mind.  

Looking for a Centralized Managed Security Solution 

Prior to Adlumin, Bank Midwest faced several challenges with its existing security solution. First and foremost, it had multiple logins, making it difficult to have a unified view of its security landscape. As the community bank expanded its environment to the cloud, the perimeter that needed protection grew, further complicating its security efforts. 

In addition to these challenges, Bryan Wilken, SVP/ Chief Information Operations Officer at Bank Midwest, expressed the need to offload his team’s vulnerability monitoring and patching tasks to free up time for more operational responsibilities. Unfortunately, their previous Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solutions did not provide full visibility into their entire landscape, making it harder for the team to manage security threats effectively.  

Bank Midwest was actively seeking to outsource its MDR and Vulnerability Management needs. This led them to explore various platforms designed to connect community banks with the right technology vendors. During this search, they found Adlumin, offering a solution perfectly tailored to their requirements. 

Adlumin provides a platform featuring a single login interface, encompassing both MDR and Vulnerability Management services. This implementation allowed Bank Midwest to streamline its security management significantly. By consolidating these critical functions into one interface, Adlumin’s solution provides a centralized view of Bank Midwest’s security environment while also offloading a considerable amount of work from their overall team. 

Cybersecurity Incident Remediated During Onboarding 

During onboarding, Bank Midwest encountered a cybersecurity incident when an alert flagged an unauthorized user attempting to access sensitive information. Wilken immediately reached out to Adlumin’s customer success team for assistance and guidance on the next steps. He later noted that this critical alert might have gone unnoticed without Adlumin’s monitoring and response capabilities, specifically Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR). 

Adlumin’s team transitioned from the onboarding phase into full incident response mode without hesitation. Bank Midwest praised Adlumin for their quick and decisive action, emphasizing that their prompt response played a crucial role in mitigating the incident. This rapid intervention was reported to Bank Midwest’s board and their insurance provider, who recognized the achievement of resolving the issue in under 12 hours—an impressive timeframe, faster than the industry standard. 

Bank Midwest specifically credited Adlumin’s threat detection capabilities. Wilkens said, “Adlumin is containing threats on the same day, which normally would be days or weeks.” This experience showcased the importance of Adlumin’s partnership with Bank Midwest, which has grown into an ongoing relationship characterized by consistent touchpoints and weekly meetings. 

“Adlumin always wants to listen to us,” Wilken mentioned, highlighting the open lines of communication and continuous support that have become a foundational element of their collaboration. 

Sending 12 billion Lines of Logs to Adlumin Monthly 

Adlumin’s approach to security stands out from the competition, delivering a unique solution for Bank Midwest. Adlumin seamlessly ingests data from various sources, including Salesforce, network traffic, firewalls, VPN, Microsoft, and email systems. This approach ensures the detection of anomalies that other security solutions might overlook. 

In the past, Bank Midwest faced additional costs for monitoring each log type, often choosing between expense and security. However, Adlumin allows the integration of all data sources without incurring extra fees, ensuring strong security without compromising cost efficiency. 

Adlumin’s ability to integrate security telemetry from various sources is a significant differentiator. By centralizing data, Adlumin provides deeper insights into security alerts and streamlines IT workflows. Their vendor-agnostic approach ensures that Bank Midwest can maximize the value of their existing security investments. With Adlumin, Bank Midwest enjoys complete visibility across its entire enterprise, enhancing its overall security posture. 

Bank Midwest Team Member Saves 40% of Workload 

Bank Midwest has experienced remarkable efficiency improvements by leveraging Adlumin’s Continuous Vulnerability Management and MDR services. 

By outsourcing this job to Adlumin, Bank Midwest ensures that its systems are watched, cared for, and overseen 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Adlumin excels at automatically detecting vulnerabilities and critical misconfigurations according to the Center for Internet Security’s (CIS) benchmarks, ensuring all assets remain compliant and secure.  

Adlumin’s patch management capabilities allow for rapid remediation and deployment of relevant patches, keeping Bank Midwest’s systems secure and up to date. This proactive approach diminishes the number of vulnerabilities the operations team must manually address, enhancing overall operational efficiency and security posture.

Simplified Security with a Single Vendor 

Bank Midwest continues to rely on Adlumin for its cybersecurity needs, appreciating how its solutions evolve with emerging threats, such as ransomware targeting community banks. For example, Wilken says, “Adlumin has tools that allow us to test our defenses, which is above and beyond what I’ve seen from other solutions. In my 26 years of managing technology, I have not seen where the partner says, go ahead and test your defenses. Here is how you can test us.”

The community bank values the simplicity and efficiency of consolidating Continuous Vulnerability Management, the security operations platform, and MDR services into a single vendor. This streamlined approach eliminates the need to juggle multiple customer success managers, outsourcing more cybersecurity responsibilities to Adlumin.  

Notably, Adlumin’s commitment to keeping pace with evolving cyber threats, through its offering of ransomware exfiltration and prevention services at no additional cost, inspires confidence among its customers. “With Adlumin, I’m putting everything on the table at a reasonable cost compared to what solutions are available these days,” Wilken says, emphasizing the value proposition that Adlumin brings. 

Wilkens continues, “Adlumin continues to meet and exceed my expectations, and I’m excited to continue this partnership.” The relationship between Bank Midwest and Adlumin serves as a testament to their proficiency and dedication to protecting organizations. As cyber threats become more sophisticated, the need for a reliable and innovative security provider like Adlumin becomes increasingly crucial. Wilken’s appreciation highlights the pivotal role Adlumin plays in its cybersecurity strategy and its confidence in its capabilities moving forward.