Langham Hotel, Auckland

Hotel closes door on cyber threats

It used to be the nocturnal habits of rock-star guests that propelled hotels into the news headlines. These days it’s more likely to be a cyberattack targeting guest credit card information.

Smart thinking hotels are wise to the emerging threat, protecting their guests – and the hotel’s reputation – with best of breed technology to keep the bad guys on the outside.

Raymond Chan, IT manager at The Langham Hotel, Auckland, has turned the tables on network hackers and a blend of other cyber threats, upgrading the hotel’s first line of digital defence with a pair of Palo Alto PA-500 firewalls.

Sold and installed by NEC New Zealand, the next-generation firewall keeps current and emerging threats at bay with constantly updating wild-fire analysis to automatically block unknown exploits and malware.

“Like most businesses, we must safe-keep customer information,” said Chan. “The last thing anybody wants is a backdoor left open to hackers.”

With the door well and truly closed on hackers, malware, and other zero-day exploits, Chan can rest easy knowing that sensitive information is safely beyond the clutches of cybercriminals.

Rethink

Chan said an aging security appliance kept him awake at night. End-points weren’t tuned to cope with ransom-ware. So he needed to close that door to avoid making news headlines for the wrong reasons.

Checklist

Chan’s top-three considerations for a new firewall included a single pane of glass to manage the hotel’s entire IT entity; simplicity – undergoing a 10-week course to understand language, devices, and programming was out of the question; and ease of use – no functions hidden within functions. Just simple drop-down menus to select, set-up, and change security policies.

Done Deal

Palo Alto ticked all the boxes on Chan’s purchase checklist. He specifically mentioned Palo Alto’s enterprise capability: “They have a very strong reputation as a secure provider. I wasn’t interested in up-and-coming,” he said. “We worked tirelessly with NEC to come up with an attractive package so that it was a no-brainer decision to invest in next-gen technology.”

Palo Alto PA-500

The central feature of Palo Alto’s firewall is a security-specific operating system that sifts all traffic for applications, threats, and content. The system identifies unknown malware, analyses it based on hundreds of malicious behaviours, and then automatically creates and delivers protection.

Highlights

Chan and his assistant set security policies and monitor threats daily. URL filtering and refinements happen automatically in the background, weeding out threats from traffic.

Working with NEC

NEC installed the Palo Alto firewall onsite at The Langham. NEC also manages licenses and provides engineering support and advice. “NEC’s account management is top-notch. They’re technically savvy and their advice and direction are sound,” said Chan.

Contact your NEC account manager to learn how we can keep your information safe – and your business out of the news for the wrong reasons.

Call 04 381 1111 (Wellington), 09 304 0430 (Auckland) or click the link below.

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