How Hi-Temp Insulation Launched Illumio's Micro-Segmentation in Just 30 Minutes

For Hi-Temp Insulation Inc., “good enough” digital security was no longer good enough.

That’s because the Camarillo, California-based manufacturer of thermal and fire-protection products for the aerospace and defense industries was now being required by the U.S. Department of Defense, one of its major clients, to respond to new security standards.

Hi-Temp Insulation met the compliance requirements at a basic level. And it implemented Windows Group Policy using Microsoft Active Directory as a segmentation measure.

But creating firewall Group Policy Objects (GPOs) was labor-intensive. Searching text logs to trace the root cause of issues proved unfeasible. And pushing out changes was an hours-long event.

Microsegmentation to the rescue

To resolve these issues, Hi-Temp sought a software-based micro-segmentation solution.

The company had three main goals:

• Implement a least-privilege access model.
• Segment servers containing sensitive information.
• Gain much-needed visibility into traffic flowing across its corporate network.

“There was always the thought that we could be used as a vector in an advanced targeted attack,” says David Hanna, IT operations specialist in charge of security operations and network administration at Hi-Temp Insulation. “So getting visibility and tighter security controls in place was a critical initiative.”

Easy to deploy

After evaluating several micro-segmentation products, Hi-Temp selected Illumio Core. Illumio led the way with easy deployment and significant savings.

“Illumio stood out from the crowd with its speed and ease,” Hanna says. “We were able to get it up and running within less than a half-hour. Instantly, we could see our traffic and set up policies to protect our network."

Thanks to Illumio Core’s real-time application dependency map, Hanna gained complete visibility into Hi-Temp’s east-west internal network traffic flows and application chatter. Now he could quickly identify risky traffic pathways and shut down unnecessary connections.

Long gone are the days of trawling through logs and firewall alerts, Hanna says. Now Hi-Temp has gained a historical view of all traffic flows, speeding both troubleshooting and incident response.

“It’s as simple as quickly punching in a query to look up traffic and being able to rectify issues in minutes,” Hanna says.

Benefits galore

With Illumio up and running, Hi-Temp now enjoys these valuable benefits:

• Time-saving visualization: Illumio’s interactive real-time application dependency map, augmented by Illumio Core’s traffic flow database, cuts Hi-Temp’s troubleshooting time from hours to minutes.
• Tighter security, greater confidence: Hi-Temp can now protect servers at a more granular level than Windows Policy Objects allowed.
• Faster response and resolution: Illumio Core helps Hi-Temp move faster. That includes quickly detecting and taking immediate action on unauthorized flows or missing rules. It also means being able to deploy policy changes in minutes.

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