About Early Light International (Holdings) Ltd.
Founded in 1972, Early Light International (Holdings) Ltd. possesses a highly diverse portfolio, including Toy Manufacturing, Property Management & Development, Watch & Jewelry, Automotive Services, and Education. Headquartered in Hong Kong, the group has established offices in Mainland China, Macau, and Australia and employs over 40,000 individuals worldwide. Through strategic expansion and acquisitions, the group continues to drive both progress and growth, underpinned by innovation and experience.
Image source: https://www.earlylight.com.hk/about-us
Confronted with an increasingly complex cyber threat landscape, Early Light engaged Sangfor for its expertise in cybersecurity.
Customer Pain Points: Complex IT Environment Prevented Effective Network Oversight
With a diverse business portfolio, multiple factories in Hong Kong and Mainland China, and a 40,000-strong global workforce, Early Light operates in a complex IT environment. Lam Hoi Hing, Director of Information Technology at Early Light, said, “Our operations are spread across different regions, which poses a significant challenge for comprehensive and effective network security management. Additionally, the global shortage of IT talent means that using technology to solve problems efficiently and effectively is a top priority for our IT department.”
Mak Wai Shan, Sangfor’s Security Sales Manager, notes, “Early Light’s complex IT environment means that, even with their adoption of the latest firewalls and endpoint security solutions, the company still struggled to keep pace with the ever-evolving nature of cyber threats.”
Following initial engagements with Early Light to understand their needs, Sangfor recommended deploying Cyber Command. This solution provides comprehensive insights into the company’s network environment and identifies potential risks.
Sangfor Solution: Cyber Command Offers Complete Visibility into Vulnerabilities & Attacks
Cyber Command is a strategic product from Sangfor. As a Network Detection and Response (NDR) platform, it is ideal for monitoring distributed networks with multiple locations, such as Early Light’s factories and branch offices. The solution uses the STA sensor to collect and analyze network traffic from different sources to generate security alerts. These alerts are sent to the Cyber Command platform for correlation analysis.
When deployed in a complex network environment like Early Light’s, Cyber Command leverages its built-in machine learning algorithms and AI-based behavior detection engines to detect characteristics of advanced threats, such as attack patterns, malware behavior, and abnormal outbound connections. Combined with big data correlation analysis, it consolidates multiple related alerts into single, contextualized incidents. An integrated SOAR (security orchestration, automation, and response) module enables automated response to detected threats, streamlining the response process and reducing the need for manual intervention.
Cyber Command’s Golden Eye feature provides enhanced visibility. Whenever unusual activity is detected on a computer, Golden Eye reveals the devices and locations it previously connected to. This allows for an immediate understanding of the scope of compromise, facilitating a fast response to minimize the impact and losses on the company.
Early Light’s “Security Upgrade Plan”
Impressed by Cyber Command, Early Light quickly implemented a “Security Upgrade Plan” to adopt other Sangfor security products, namely Network Secure (next-generation firewall) and Internet Access Gateway (IAG) for internet access management.
Sangfor Network Secure is equipped with the Engine Zero AI-driven threat detection engine and is the world’s first firewall integrated with WAF (Web Application Firewall), ensuring robust defense against network intrusions. Additionally, it includes SD-WAN capabilities, supporting full mesh connectivity for faster and more stable file transfers among employees.
Furthermore, “To improve the security of our employees’ internet activities, we have deployed Sangfor IAG for more granular behavior control,” said Cheung Wai, Senior Manager of the Information Technology Department at Early Light. “This includes filtering and blocking inappropriate or dangerous websites and analyzing and identifying user access behavior. Sangfor IAG also offers a data loss prevention solution, which audits and retains records of data transmission activities, such as copying files to USB or other portable storage devices and printing documents.
Early Light’s Security Upgrade Plan took approximately three months from initiation to fully implement, with the installation of components requiring only one week. Lai Pak Sum, a security consultant from Sangfor, explained that Cyber Command uses traffic mirroring to collect traffic for analysis, which does not interfere with the network and, therefore, does not impact daily business operations.
Final Thoughts
With over 20 years of experience in cybersecurity, Sangfor serves over 100,000 customers worldwide. The company strives to respond rapidly to emerging cybersecurity threats through innovative solutions and technologies. The project with Early Light perfectly exemplifies Sangfor’s customer-oriented business strategy, effectively addressing the customer’s pain points. Through Sangfor’s cutting-edge security technologies, Early Light acquired the means to strengthen network monitoring and protection, swiftly and accurately defend against cyber threats, and simplify daily security operations.