From telegraph lines to global lifelines
Western Union began in 1851 with a telegraph line in Rochester, New York. Soon after, it pioneered the world’s first wire transfer. More than 170 years later, that same drive to connect people has made Western Union a global leader in money movement. Today, the company operates in over 200 countries and territories. Millions rely on it daily, whether it’s to pay tuition, grow businesses, or support their families. Through it all, Western Union pursues a clear mission: making financial services accessible by bridging the digital and physical worlds with choice, security, and trust.
“We serve a lot of underserved customers and in many parts of the world that do not have access to financial services,” said Rust Perry, the company’s VP of cybersecurity architecture strategy. “They have real needs.”
Meeting the modern cybersecurity challenges of financial services
Western Union’s reach is massive; so are its security demands. The company manages thousands of systems, workloads, and applications across cloud, on-premises, and regulated payment environments. Every transaction must be safe.
Compliance rules add more challenges. For instance, PCI DSS 4.0 compliance brought stricter security requirements. These include stronger access controls and MFA, and more rigorous use of network segmentation.
“Microsegmentation is hugely important,” said Bruce Godbout, Western Union’s senior director of cybersecurity architecture and engineering. When it acquires a new company, for example, Western Union can now bring in a portion of the new environment and activate it without fully connecting it to core systems.
“It’s powerful,” he said.
Before Illumio, the company had tried to do microsegmentation on its own. It was no small feat. The team had to generate all the logs for all of its assets. It wrote its own tooling, and its software analyzed it all. Finally, the team applied automation to enforce host-based firewall rules.
Sure, it was technically possible. But as Godbout explains, it was also slow and hard to scale. “If you’ve got all the time in the world, you can put that together,” he said. “But if you’ve got a tight timeline or technology limitations, then you’ve got to approach it differently.”
Western Union was facing both. Business growth was accelerating. At the same time, M&A brought with it new environments, outdated apps, and untested systems.
It needed a faster, easier way to secure its systems, contain risk, and meet PCI deadlines. And it needed to deploy it all in a way that didn’t slow down innovation.
How Illumio accelerated Zero Trust
Western Union chose Illumio to simplify microsegmentation, speed compliance, and gain visibility into workloads and traffic. Its goal is observability — understanding, not just seeing. Illumio helped it turn a constant sea of signals into a short list that highlights what matters, finds hidden anomalies, and speeds up investigations.
By segmenting PCI-regulated systems, Western Union passed the QSA audit, met PCI DSS 4.0’s MFA standards, and achieved its Zero Trust goals faster. The result? Fewer compliance headaches and stronger protection for sensitive customer data.
Illumio also streamlined its M&A integration. New environments can now be separated until they meet company security standards. This reduces risk while letting business teams move forward.
Visual clarity helped earn team trust. Maps of Western Union’s environment showed stakeholders exactly what would change and when. That helped smooth stakeholder buy-in.
And when a deployment issue arose, Illumio provided a patch within 24 hours.
“That responsiveness was incredible,” Perry said.
Today, Illumio is a key part of Western Union’s broader security strategy. Its telemetry feeds into its continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) program. This helps the company detect unusual activity faster and respond before incidents escalate.
Securing the future of global money movement
Illumio continues to help Western Union stay ahead, especially with AI-powered threats.
“It’s already happening,” Godbout says. Using AI to defend against AI attacks, Illumio limits the blast radius of attacks and contains threats before they can spread. With 170 years of innovation behind it, Western Union is focused on resilience for the future. By combining its bold mission with modern security practices, the company is redefining what it means to move money securely.
Results and benefits
Only three months needed to get started
Three months of traffic analysis was enough to begin microsegmentation. This provided data to validate patterns and move fast.
Met key PCI DSS 4.0 compliance objectives
Isolated PCI-regulated systems. Reduced audit scope. Met MFA requirements. Aligned with Zero Trust practices.
Accelerated M&A integration
Keeps acquired environments segmented until they meet company standards. This enables faster, lower-risk integrations.
Improved visibility and control
Real-time application dependency maps replace log reviews. This gives teams instant insight and speeds up investigations.
Contained threats before they spread
Reduces attack surface. Improves risk identification. Protects against threats such as ransomware.
Increased operational confidence
Clear visualizations earn stakeholder buy-in. Support delivered a critical patch within 24 hours.
