Dissatisfaction with usability occurs even though the network is physically separated to ensure security

The Joyo Bank, which has its head office in Mito City, Ibaraki Prefecture, is the core bank of the Mebuki Financial Group, which was formed through the management integration with Ashikaga Holdings Co., Ltd. in October 2016. The bank aims to contribute to the development of local communities and economies by creating valuable businesses together with customers, communities, and shareholders under the management philosophy of "Sound, Co-creation, Together with the Community." .

The bank has long been strongly aware of the importance of information security and has actively worked to strengthen it. As part of this, we have adopted a mechanism that completely eliminates external threats by physically separating Internet-connected PCs from the network. Although security was guaranteed by this, various problems were created on the business side. Mr. Masaki Miyota, Deputy General Manager of the System Department, said, "Behind the scenes of isolating the network and ensuring safety, usability was sacrificed. A normal work PC cannot browse the Internet, search the Internet, or exchange e-mail, so a separate PC was prepared. It had to be done on a dedicated Internet-connected PC, and it was also a hindrance when using external cloud services."

In addition, the number of Internet-connected PCs was limited, which made work complicated. Takaaki Eto, chief investigator of the system department, said, "For example, in the case of the system department, there were only 3 or 4 Internet-connected PCs per 100 people, and each sales office had only one PC. In addition, since we did not allow data to be directly imported into the internal network at our sales offices, even if we received PDF documents from customers such as corporate financial statements, we had to print them out on paper.” look back.

Balancing security and convenience without changing the network environment

Aiming to solve these problems, Joyo Bank has decided to build a system that can reliably eliminate threats via the Internet and improve work efficiency. The bank has considered VDI, which virtualizes desktops, and virtualized separation solutions that use virtual browsers, but the costs are quite high and the existing network environment needs to be significantly reconsidered. I didn't get hired.

It was against this backdrop that the bank was introduced to the "Menlo Security Isolation Platform" by Macnica at an exhibition held in the summer of 2018. The bank was highly impressed with this solution, which uses a unique technology called isolation to reliably eliminate threats from the web in the same way as physical isolation.

“We appreciated the fact that it can be installed without making any major changes to the existing environment, especially the network environment, and that it can separate the Internet. Another advantage is that the initial installation cost is low because it is a SaaS model, and the installation is easy. The point is that there is no need for troublesome work such as sizing when introducing it.” (Mr. Eto)

“Based on the results of our regular targeted email drills, we needed to take countermeasures based on the assumption that we could not eliminate user errors. A big part of this is that even if you carelessly click on an attached file or a URL in the body of an email, you won't be harmed." (Mr. Miyota)

The bank started full-scale verification of Menlo Security in December 2018. Mr. Satoshi Sugimoto of the System Department, who was a core member of the evaluation, said as follows.

"The operability does not change when using it, and I was able to use it without feeling a lot of stress in terms of speed. There was almost no break in the layout, and there was no loss of usability.In addition to web pages, You can rest assured that you can also sanitize webmail attachments and downloaded files.”

Based on the results of PoC, which started in May 2019, and information gathering from other companies that have introduced Menlo Security, it was confirmed that it can be used without problems, so we decided to officially adopt it in July.

Expectations for improved business efficiency through Internet connection and use of cloud services

At Joyo Bank, in preparation for the start of Menlo Security operation in January 2020, we proceeded with the final check of the PCs that we assumed to use.

"Because Menlo Security can be introduced with the same usability as a conventional Internet environment, we only needed simple training and manual distribution for users to explain how to use it." (Mr. Sugimoto)

With this introduction, it became possible to use the Internet from the intranet of the bank, which has expanded the range of use of various cloud services, and has high expectations from each department. Because Internet-connected PCs used IP addresses that were dynamically assigned by providers, there were cases where services such as IP address authentication could not be used. However, from now on, by assigning a fixed (global) IP address to the source IP address of Menlo Security that can be seen from the website side, websites that authenticate by IP address can also be used.

"Being able to use fixed IPs has greatly expanded the range of cloud service usage, and we can expect it to contribute to operational efficiency," says Mr. Eto.

In terms of operation, costs are expected to be reduced by eliminating the need for Internet-connected PCs, which had previously been prepared separately from business PCs.

Expecting to provide the latest information

Joyo Bank aims to achieve both a secure environment and user convenience by introducing Menlo Security. Going forward, we hope to improve the usability of Menlo Security.

"For example, it would be great if they could expand the scope of support for double-encrypted compressed file Macnica checking, which is currently not supported by Web Isolation." Thanks to our strong collaborative relationship with the company, we are able to quickly provide feedback on user requests to our products.Both companies have high praise for their responsiveness and speed, so we have high expectations for the future." (Mr. Sugimoto)

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