Avatel Telecom is the fifth largest national operator and leader in small and medium-sized towns. It is currently present in more than 1,000 locations throughout the country, with more than 300 physical points of sale and 2,200 employees. Since its inception in 2011, it has consolidated towards the convergence of fibre, mobile and television services. In 2022, the company earned 270 million euros, 41% more than the previous year. 

The operator has made a significant investment effort in the last three years, with the acquisition of more than 130 local operators and the investment of more than 650 million euros in its organic and inorganic expansion plan and the development of its business. Part of this investment has been allocated to strengthening its cybersecurity plan. 

The challenge 

Avatel wanted to make a qualitative leap in its cybersecurity. Its goal is to be able to detect threats and react in a timely manner.  What did it want to achieve? 

• Gain visibility and understanding of the attack surface.

• Analyse, contextualise and prioritise SIEM information and threat alerts. 

• Maximise existing resources in the midst of a global cyber security skills crisis. 

"Given the nature of our business, Avatel needs the world's leading technology for detecting vulnerabilities and cybersecurity attacks". ORIOL PEDRALS, Chief Technology Officer, Avatel Telecom. 

The solution

Avatel relied on Wise Security Global, a leading cybersecurity company in Spain, to deploy a CSOC. With Wise's help, Avatel managed to redefine and configure the SOC service.  The second phase of implementation focused on: 

• Event monitoring and management.

• Incident management. 

• Incident response.

• SIEM use case management.

• Threat Intelligence information gathering.

 

As part of the Avatel project, Wise implemented Microsoft Security Copilot technology, an AI-powered security analytics tool that enables analysts to respond to threats quickly, process signals at machine speed and assess risk exposure in a matter of minutes.  In addition, it also implemented the Microsoft Azure Sentinel module, one of the world's first cloud-native SIEM systems, which is highly automated and meets Avatel's high quality standards.  Avatel's goal is to have an autonomous detection and response system that causes minimal operational impact, allowing the company to continue to grow at an accelerated rate and with best practices and security guarantees.

"Our focus is to be able to detect and respond to the main threats in the sector, at a cost adapted to the volume we need".  ORIOL PEDRALS, CTO of AVATEL TELECOM.

The benefits

Using Azure Sentinel helps Avatel and the Wise team to go beyond the administration of the local SIEM and also focuses on the added value that lies at the top layer: how to make strategic work more interesting. What this cyber security project achieves: 

• Process automation, which drastically minimises incident management. 

• Reduction of detection and response time. 

• Optimisation of the company's resources allocated to cybersecurity.

• Much higher efficiency, allowing the team to focus on the evolution and improvement of the system. 

• Improved and faster diagnostics. 

• Optimal incident escalation and resolution. 

• Incident learning and modelling of cybersecurity best practices among staff and customers. 

40 minutes. This is the average incident resolution time since the CSOC implemented in Avatel by Wise.  600 incidents per month. This is the average number of incidents detected in a month in the 24/7 service. 

"We now have more advanced defence tools to improve our response to threats thanks to Wise". ORIOL PEDRALS, CTO of AVATEL TELECOM.