Unified Security: The Key to Operational Simplicity for Modern SMBs

How Space Needle Gained Network Visibility and Security 

“As we expanded our digital footprint, it became clear that a fragmented security approach wouldn’t cut it,” says Pearce Cobarr, the Space Needle’s director of innovation and technology. “Check Point’s Workspace Security platform gave us that unified approach, offering an integrated security posture that aligns with how we operate daily.”

While operating as a unified security platform, Workspace Security’s modular approach aligned well with the Space Needle’s security priorities, allowing the company to apply the right tools for its needs. The provider’s secure access service edge module protects access for employees regardless of where they work, ensuring consistent security policy enforcement and visibility. Workspace Security Email protects the Space Needle’s staff from phishing and malicious email attachments.

Workspace Security Endpoint safeguards the company’s devices, detecting and responding directly to device threats, while its web application firewall solution protects web-facing applications and services.

“We’ve implemented several components of the Check Point Workspace Security platform,” Cobarr says. “This layered approach creates an intentional, efficient, defense-in-depth strategy for us.”

One of the hallmarks of a modern, comprehensive approach to security is widespread visibility across infrastructure and resources. Deep, consistent network visibility ensures the right protections are being deployed.

“We appreciate the visibility and consistency the Check Point Workspace Security platform provides, allowing us to apply policies in a more consistent way,” Cobarr says. “It allows us to implement enterprise-grade security practices across multiple domains within a unified framework. We’re operating from a more cohesive platform, which gives us centralized visibility, coordinated controls and the ability to evolve our security posture over time.”

With effective, defense-in-depth security in place, threats can’t capitalize on opportunities to morph into incidents. Reducing phishing and endpoint incidents has allowed the Space Needle’s small IT team to shift its focus: No longer stuck reacting to attacks, the team can spend more time monitoring and responding thoroughly to the fewer incidents that arise. This healthy security posture also allows Space Needle staff to work more effectively, Cobarr says.

“Our teams can operate knowing that core systems are protected. And leadership has greater confidence in our ability to support growth without introducing unnecessary risk. When security is well integrated and not overly complex, it becomes an asset rather than a roadblock.”

Space Needle visitors come and go without the slightest awareness of the security resources operating in the background, and that’s how it should be, Cobarr says.

“Our mission is to create memorable, meaningful and transformational experiences for our guests,” he says. “Technology plays a huge role in that, and security is foundational to making it all work. When it’s done right, security isn’t something that guests even notice, but they benefit from it every moment they’re with us. We’re enabling innovation and protecting the experience at the same time.”

Enterprise-Grade Security Plus Operational Simplicity

For small businesses such as the Space Needle, the promise of a comprehensive security platform that delivers enterprise-like protections has been a long time coming.

“Today’s security platform architectures unify telemetry across identity, endpoint, network, cloud and data domains,” explains Frank Dickson, group vice president for security and trust at IDC. “They centralize policy across hybrid environments and embed automation into investigation and remediation workflows. Rather than layering tools, they reduce fragmentation.”

Taking a more unified approach to security delivers a variety of enterprise-grade benefits, including big reductions in the probability or impact of major security incidents, improvements to operational efficiency across security and IT teams, less downtime and stronger digital resilience. Tool consolidation and cost stabilization, along with improved audit and compliance readiness, round out the list of benefits. Platforms also improve essential efforts such as threat detection and response, Dickson adds.

“Organizations consistently report measurable improvements in their ability to detect, investigate and remediate threats,” he says. “When telemetry from identity, endpoint, network and cloud environments is correlated within a shared data model, detection becomes more contextual and less dependent on manual cross-tool analysis.”

Correlating data across systems boosts several important security metrics, including faster mean time to detect, faster mean time to remediate and greater identification of high-fidelity threats. “These are not simply operational metrics,” Dickson says. “Independent breach cost research demonstrates that earlier containment significantly reduces financial impact. By shortening detection and response cycles, platforms reduce both the likelihood and the cost of major incidents.”

Beyond security, the operational simplicity that comprehensive security platforms provide also bears mentioning. Organizations tend to accumulate security tools over time, with the resulting complexity introducing inefficiencies, alert fatigue, integration fragility and inconsistent processes. A platform approach reduces those burdens by consolidating workflows, minimizing dashboard switching and standardizing operating procedures.

“Simplification does not imply reduced capacity,” Dickson advises. “Rather, it reflects architectural coherence. When workflows, telemetry, policy and automation are aligned with a unified system, security operations become more predictable and scalable. In an environment where talent shortages and digital expansion are persistent realities, operational simplification supports sustainability as much as security efficacy.”

GO DEEPER: Discover how to find your biggest security gaps without adding more tools.

How SAHC Secures Multiple Domains

Spectrum Automotive Holdings Company is the nation’s largest independent distributor of automotive finance and insurance products and services. It manages a portfolio of specialty companies that operate within the automotive industry. With about 50 companies under its management, Spectrum needed a security platform that could provide a cohesive overview of the security postures of all of its domains. The company opted for the Rapid7 Command Platform.

“One of the things that makes Spectrum unique is we frequently have to manage the same identities across different domains,” says Jared Krato, director of cybersecurity and compliance. “This person has an account here and also over there. Rapid7 lets us pool information onto one platform, making the security team’s job easier. I can type in a name and see all the accounts this person has in one spot.”

The Rapid7 platform also provides a selection of core modular capabilities along with 180 third-party integrations available through its extensions library. Of the many Rapid7 resources Spectrum has access to, managed detection and response, has delivered notable results, Krato says.

“Rapid7’s security operations center has found things that we overlooked,” he says. “We had someone download a malicious Microsoft Teams installer. When we looked at it, no system on the internet identified it.”

A few hours later that same day, Rapid7’s SOC discovered the installer on the Spectrum network, and the team quickly removed it.

Among the Command platform modules, Krato says, the company has gained security and business value from Surface Command, Rapid7’s attack surface management solution, which “has helped us discover security gaps,” Krato says. “Many of our companies use Microsoft Active Directory. We were able to compare what we see with our remote monitoring and management tool to our endpoint detection and response tool report. It’s very easy to pull reports and clearly see what needs to be addressed.”

To safeguard its many companies, Spectrum’s small IT team needed the precise support provided by Rapid7’s comprehensive Command platform. The ability to dial in on the specific resources the holding company requires is one of the things Krato most appreciates about Rapid7 Command. “I know other organizations’ security teams say, ‘Call me when something is wrong.’ But I want to be in control of my data,” he says. “I want to create the alerts that I want. Rapid7 lets me do that. With so many tools at your fingertips, it’s really what you make of it.”