Protect Critical & Operational Infrastructure
Case Study
TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS
Business Background
Founded in 1950, MACOM is one of the leading companies in the semiconductor industry, with offices around the world. It manufactures and supplies over 3,500 products across 40 different product lines. Due to its broad catalog portfolio of technologies, MACOM serves a wide range of markets, including the aerospace, automotive, industrial, military, and medical industries. As a rapidly growing and successful company, MACOM routinely acquires numerous smaller semiconductor firms.
"In today’s cyber environment, companies can never be too vigilant given the increasing complexity of cyber-threats in M&A deals.
Darktrace’s Enterprise Immune System is helping us stay proactive and aware of our cyber risk profle."
Robert Dennehy, SVP, MACOM
Overview:
Industry
- Technology Solutions
Challenge
- Safeguarding intellectual property
and confidential customer data - Staying ahead of sophisticated
attackers and rapidly-evolving threats - Gaining actionable insights into
network policy differences during an
M&A process
Results
- 100% network visibility enabling
deeper and more thorough activity
oversight - Instant alerts to genuinely
anomalous behavior - More efficient threat prioritization
and resource allocation - Unified view of parent and child
networks for policy discrepancy
monitoring
Challenge
As a manufacturer of a large range of product types supplied to customers across a variety of sectors globally, MACOM manages a large amount of its own intellectual property and confidential customer data within its complex, multifaceted network. The company prioritizes its cyber-defense strategy in order to protect its internal assets and, in turn, to maintain its brand reputation and position as a leader in its field.
In addition, MACOM routinely acquires semi-conductor companies toaccelerate its rapid growth and expand into new markets. MACOM wanted to deploy a technology that was capable of conducting cyber due diligence during these M&A processes to proactively ensure that both the child and parent networks had matching implementation policies before merging the two together. It was critical for MACOM to have complete visibility and awareness of both networks in this process in a unified view.
Solution
MACOM decided to deploy Darktrace’s Enterprise Immune System across its complex network thanks to its unique capability to detect emerging threats, without requiring any prior knowledge. Powered by AI algorithms and unsupervised machine learning developed by specialists from the University of Cambridge, the technology self-learns a ‘pattern of life’ specific to MACOM’s network, allowing it to report any deviations from ‘normal’ behavior, which may be indicative of a serious breach.
"Darktrace’s technology gave us visibility into potential
implementation differences and policy discrepancies. Leveraging
Darktrace’s AI technology, we were able to identify and remediate these differences before connecting the two networks, thus mitigating potential integration risks."
Robert Dennehy, SVP, MACOM
Additionally, MACOM uses Darktrace’s AI technology to conduct cyber due diligence before, during, and after the M&A process. In a recent implementation, MACOM leveraged the Enterprise Immune System to inspect the child network for any policy discrepancies that would prolong the merging of the two networks.
Using Darktrace’s unified view feature, MACOM was instantly able to review both the parent and child network side by side within the 3D Threat Visualizer. During the inspection, MACOM was able to ensure that the child network was free of any policy discrepancies or network hygiene issues before merging with the parent network. Deployed in less than an hour, the Enterprise Immune System requires no additional configuration, enabling the cyber due diligence process to begin immediately, in line with the aggressive timelines of a merger or acquisition.
Benefits
MACOM has proven itself an industry leader when it comes to conducting proactive cyber due diligence throughout the M&A process. Thanks to Darktrace’s self-learning technology, MACOM is confident that it is able defend against novel cyber-threats, and that it is able to identify insider threat early on.
Mergers and acquisitions present a unique cyber challenge. As Boards of Directors pay more attention to their cyber posture, it has become critical for companies to add cyber due diligence to the pre-acquisition checklist and during the merging of the two companies’ networks.
The integration of two networks exposes companies to considerable risks, making organizations undergoing M&As a prime target for cyber-criminals. Until recently, companies have merged the networks with little to no cyber due diligence conducted on the target network before, during, and after the acquisition. Instead, acquiring companies mainly focused on due diligence with regards to financial and legal fundamentals. However, in today’s rapidly-evolving threat landscape, modern M&A practices need to include a realization that they are also acquiring past, present, and even future cyber-threats.
By relying on Darktrace’s technology as its core cyber security solution, and by using the tool for its M&A processes, MACOM has led the charge for proactive
cyber defense and due diligence. It can now feel confident that even in the face of increasingly sophisticated threat actors, and several incoming acquisitions, it has the ability to identify and fight back against threats at their earliest stages.
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