Success Story / Financial Institutions
United Southern Bank of Kentucky (USBKY) is a community bank headquartered in Hopkinsville, KY, serving the surrounding Christian and Todd County areas. Locally owned, they provide financial services to individuals and businesses in small communities, protecting nearly $300 million in assets. USBKY currently employs around 70 employees at eight branch locations. Their IT team consists of two employees, Joshua Fidler, Information Technology Officer, and Jill Burkeen, Information Security Officer.
Prior to Adlumin, USBKY worked with a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platform that only provided partial visibility. As threats within the banking industry became more prevalent, they realized they needed more than a SIEM to stay ahead of cybercriminals and market trends. So, they looked for a platform to give their lean team insights and visibility into their hybrid multi-cloud environment. In addition, they wanted a solution that provided threat intelligence, was easy to use and offered cybersecurity experts for additional support.
Before discovering Adlumin, USBKY constantly reached out to their previous solution’s support team for assistance regarding their environment and struggled to get quick responses. Additionally, they were limited in the number of alerts they were receiving, so they had to put forth continuous efforts to consistently get the results they were looking for.
Fed up with the overall experience, USBKY began looking for a better solution to fit their needs and came across Adlumin. They immediately set up a demo to learn more. Joshua Fidler, Information Technology Officer at USBKY, said, “from the first demo, it was clearly a superior product to what we had in place.” From that moment forward, they decided Adlumin would be the ideal solution they were looking for, providing full visibility into threats and vulnerabilities.
“Our previous SIEM was very difficult to handle. It was an on-prem appliance that required constant attention, and it was not easy to use. We had constant support calls to get it functioning like it should be. It was not nearly as robust [as Adlumin’s MDR platform].”
USBKY searched for a platform they could manage without complications and did not pose any additional risks to their bank. Adlumin offers multiple options for customers where they can choose to manage the Security Operations Platform themselves, through one of the various trusted Partners, or engage with Adlumin’s Managed Detection and Response Services team to protect fully. The management options put the power of the product in USBKY’s team, giving them control of their environment.
Cybercriminals consistently search for vulnerable entry points, while daily threats congregate in the dark parts of the internet. USBKY wanted a solution that would be a part of its IT department and shed light on its cybersecurity landscape. With the Adlumin platform continuously scanning its environment, USBKY stays ahead of cyber criminals and provides a deeper understanding of what threats are brewing before an attack occurs.
“The cyber expertise of the people [at Adlumin] is very impressive. I think the innovativeness of the platform, the vision cast of where the product is going, and the roadmaps that they shared with us, was critical in our selection of Adlumin.”
Like most banks, one of USBKY’s main concerns is the rising ransomware attacks within their industry. Protecting themselves from ransomware attacks was another another one of their requirements. Adlumin’s Data Science Team developed a machine learning algorithm for detecting ransomware attacks via comprehensive monitoring of changes across the entire file system. Deploying Adlumin’s Security Operations Platform ease concerns for their IT team and the Board of Directors.
Understanding the importance of meeting its compliance requirements, USBKY required a solution that could easily pull reports for external bank auditors and examiners. Security and risk teams are asked to use data-driven processes to improve cyber risk maturity or show regulation compliance. Adlumin’s reporting module within the MDR platform gives USBKY’s IT team one-touch compliance reporting based on live, accurate, contextualized data. They are instantly aware of where there are misconfigurations or deviations from policy threatening their compliance and security posture.
As the threats became more prevalent and we were starting to see them more in our community bank environment, having to hop from different security platforms and to gain needed visibility was a challenge to our lean team. We had a SIEM before, but it didn’t utilize AI and wasn’t meeting our current needs. And it was not user-friendly. When we saw Adlumin, we were really blown away with the interface, threat intelligence, ease of use, and the amount of visibility gained into our environment.”
– Jill Burkeen, Information Security Officer at United Southern Bank of Hopkinsville Kentucky
USBKY knows that keeping track of the darknet can be risky and resource-draining, so they rely on Adlumin’s Darknet Exposure Monitoring. This feature gives USBKY complete visibility beyond their boundaries, shedding light on things they may not be aware of otherwise. Now, they are informed on whether their data or employee credentials are up for sale.
Banks without 24×7 security coverage or those with a lean team should consider a Security Operations Platform that offers comprehensive monitoring, analysis, and insights. Not only does a Security Operations Platform plus extended risk management and security services streamline data ingestion and compliance workflows throughout USBKY’s enterprise, it also offers peace of mind knowing Adlumin is shining a light on activity that would otherwise go undetected.
Today, Adlumin and USBKY’s partnership is years in and thriving. Their team emphasizes the power of the Adlumin platform by acting as a referral to their IT peers within different industries. Joshua Fidler, Information Technology Officer at USBKY, says, “I helped sell the platform to one of your customers a year ago. We were talking about the tools we had and what we utilized, and I told him we have this neat platform that ingests all of our logs. I showed him the dashboard and the interface, and he, too, was blown away. He ended up signing with you [Adlumin] not too long after that.”
Adlumin also appointed Jill Burkeen to their customer advisory council so she could lend her insights to product development and enhancements. Burkeen says, “I am on the advisory council, and some of the things they are talking about doing in the future provide insight to our organization on what features will be added and how we can utilize that information to guide us in our strategic decisions.”
USBKY was looking for a solution that they could trust and rely on. Their advocacy shows their trust in Adlumin’s ability to help protect USBKY assets and data while enhancing the network environment.
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.
1140 3rd St. NE, Suite 340
Washington, DC 20002
(202) 570-7907
Copyright 2024 Adlumin, Inc. All Rights Reserved