FAM
FAM chooses multi-factor authentication solution AuthPoint
FAM, one of the largest companies of the Flemish investment holding Hifferman Group, has relied on Office-IT for years for their IT infrastructure, security, and monitoring.
ICT Director Patrick Van den Branden shares his experience with Office-IT and the solutions proposed by Office-IT: WatchGuard and AuthPoint. (video in Dutch)
Request a scan to detect data leaks on your domain or email addresses.
This way you can take immediate action and safeguard your information.
Patrick Van den Branden: “With Hifferman Group we are mainly active in the food processing industry, but we are also present in the high-end wellness sector. Stumabo in Aartselaar and FAM in Kontich are our biggest players. Stumabo produces precision blades for industrial cutting machines, while FAM develops and manufactures cutting machines for the industrial food industry. Their clients belong to the top of the sector. Cheese cubes, frozen vegetables for a wok dish, pizza toppings… all these products go through Stumabo’s blades and FAM’s machines. Fun fact: in 2020, FAM even won the Export Lion award in the category for companies with more than 50 employees.”
Blocking phishing thanks to MFA
“Our daily operations rely on various applications and data. One of the biggest threats in cybersecurity today is phishing, where hackers try in increasingly professional and cunning ways to obtain employee login details. With these credentials, malicious actors can gain access to the entire IT environment of the Hifferman Group. Not only would they then have access to private resources, but it could also impact our daily business operations,” explains Patrick.
“A disaster we want to avoid at all costs. On the one hand, by making our employees aware of phishing so they act as a kind of human firewall. On the other hand, by technically blocking all possible hacking attempts. We achieve this with multi-factor authentication (MFA), an extra security layer that ensures we always know the identity of the logged-in user. This eliminates the risk of unauthorized access to applications and data.”
Preventing a guaranteed cyberattack
WatchGuard predicts that every internet-exposed service without MFA will be hit by a cyber breach in 2021. “We believe this statement is completely true. A hacker needs only minimal resources to create phishing emails and spread them worldwide. Abusing accounts and data is therefore not very difficult for cybercriminals. And if the hacker does not use the data himself, he can always sell it on the Dark Web. We avoid such problems thanks to MFA.”
AuthPoint by WatchGuard: the benefits
“For our Office 365 environment, we had already been using Microsoft Authenticator. But soon we wanted to bring even more applications under a centralized MFA. Office-IT proposed AuthPoint, one of WatchGuard’s products. Since we were already using WatchGuard and were satisfied with its performance, the decision was quickly made.”
“AuthPoint is very user-friendly and transparent. Different applications are secured in the same way, which is very clear for all employees. Moreover, MFA is only applied when the user is not in one of our buildings.
Because the extra authentication happens simply via a smartphone app, without extra codes or tokens, this way of working is very efficient, easy, and secure for the entire company.”
Reasons to choose Office-IT as a partner
“Office-IT clearly has all the expertise to not only solve problems but also to ensure that solutions are easily introduced within our user community. All of this with a pleasant, pragmatic, and above all no-nonsense approach. Office-IT is not only our partner for WatchGuard, but also for monitoring our IT infrastructure and for the purchase of new servers and network equipment. Our Microsoft licenses are also managed by Office-IT.”
“We are therefore very satisfied with the collaboration and look forward to the future with great enthusiasm – and in a secure way!”
Share this case:
Looking for an IT partner for your SME?
Let us know what could be improved within your organisation. Whether you are a small or a large company, we will be pleased to work with you to examine the most suitable solutions, and are able to offer standard plans as well as custom-made options. The choice is yours.
“We were looking for extra security for our business data. With MFA, we ensure that even if a company device is stolen, our data remains protected from outsiders. The setup is simple, it’s user-friendly, and truly adds value to our company. On top of that, Office-IT provides excellent support for implementation.”
Incendin