Gentoo Builds Strong Communities with Strong Security
Gentoo Group is a housing association that owns and manages more than 29,000 homes, operating as one of the largest employers in Sunderland, England. By putting people first, Gentoo focuses on building great homes and creating strong communities. Their goal is to deliver an outstanding service to customers, and as a responsible business, they strive to inspire the communities where they work to make a difference.
Gary Smith is the senior systems engineer with Gentoo responsible for providing an efficient and effective support service for the company’s information and communication technology systems and applications, including desktops, servers, networks and voice communication systems. An ongoing challenge in this role is protecting the company from the latest threats. This is where partnering with Trend Micro plays a key role in protecting Gentoo and its customers.
Trend Micro (TM): In today’s security landscape, enterprises have many provider options. Why was Trend Micro the right fit for you?
Gary Smith (GS): We have used other vendors in the past and moved to Trend Micro more than five years ago, recently integrating XGen for endpoint. XGen applies the best threat detection technique depending on each situation to provide the most complete protection for our endpoints. We have found it is better suited to cover our multi-platform environment with a small client footprint. Trend Micro continue to invest in and develop next-gen security technologies that keep administration to a minimum for our IT team.
TM: With increasingly sophisticated threats such as ransomware on the rise, do you feel Trend Micro’s advanced techniques protect you more effectively against ransomware threats specifically?
GS: The ransomware threat is real and on the rise, and we are aware that one-third of victims are said to have lost revenue as a result of these attacks. It is important that hardware and security software are in place to combat such threats and Trend Micro’s suite of applications are imperative in our effort to protect Gentoo Group. Behavior monitoring, suspicious connections and predictive machine learning are some of the advanced features of XGen for endpoint that help us monitor potential ransomware behavior across the business.
TM: Has your workforce and user behavior evolved over the past year, and did those changes cause new security challenges? How has Trend Micro addressed those concerns?
GS: Over the past three years, the Group has changed and remote operations are now a key part of helping employees work and communicate more efficiently. This has created a new challenge for the IT team in making sure roaming clients are protected off the corporate network. The latest release of OfficeScan12.0 (XG) now includes Edge Relay (DMZ), which allows our clients to communicate with the interface to provide information in relation to any detected threats that may occur in the cloud. We requested this feature following an on-site beta test Gentoo participated in for the product. Web Reputation within the solution is also enabled for clients and this tracks the credibility of websites based on suspicious activities discovered through malware behavior analysis and blocks users from accessing infected sites. 
TM: How do you like the new version’s interface? Do you feel it allows you to see the “big picture” of your organization’s security?
GS: The new features and widgets that come with XGen for endpoint give a graphical user interface that provides a visual overview of our estate at a glance from the dashboard summary tab. This is also fully customizable to suit our team’s requirements.
TM: Do you have any lessons learned or recommendations to share?
GS: Our partnership with Trend Micro has allowed us to move to an offensive approach to security, rather than defensively reacting to potential threats. XGen for endpoint help position Gentoo as a more responsible company, protecting client and employee data. This supports the Group’s overall goal of putting people first to build stronger communities. We can’t meet that goal if clients are unable to trust that their personal and financial information is safe in our hands. Working with Trend Micro through the transition into XGen technology has reaffirmed our confidence that our security provider is consistently working to be a step ahead of anyone trying to compromise our environment.
