CCA strengthens security with multi-factor authentication from WatchGuard, implemented by ROOX

CCA strengthens security with multi-factor authentication from WatchGuard, implemented by ROOX

Founded in 1949, CCA Law Firm, with offices in Lisbon and Porto, has a culture very much focused on innovation, always looking for new ways to support its clients and partners with value and know-how. This contributes to the modernity of the firm itself, whose core business is very much related to startups and companies linked to new technologies.

Security in Access to Corporate Information

In this context, CCA Law Firm has in its DNA the investment in information security systems very present. Over the last decade, CCA has been proactively implementing a roadmap that currently allows it to have a solid and consolidated information security system that offers security guarantees in a context where cyber threats are, every day, greater in number and more serious, explains Alice Lobo.

CCA Law Firm "sees security as a must have and not a nice to have or something boring to invest in," says, in turn, Hugo Farinha, COO of ROOX, an IT consultancy specialising in providing solutions for law firms and responsible for the implementation of this project, as a partner of WatchGuard, adding that it is a firm "aware that security is not something guaranteed 100%, but that they can always become a little more secure."

"As CCA was in a process of moving premises and moving infrastructures to the cloud, they decided to take a step that added another layer of security to the one they already had, thanks to the previously installed WatchGuard UTM: multifactor authentication technology (MFA)," continues Hugo Farinha, indicating that it was the "right element to reinforce the way they are in the market".

"MFA was already a reality that we had in our IT means but, this solution now implemented, comes to reinforce the one that already existed, also requiring double verification in the access to VPNs and Office 365. The only way to ensure that, in fact, we are the ones accessing the information is with a double authentication in all scenarios and systems. There is no bigger firewall than the human one", underlines Alice Lobo.

Simplicity and Effectiveness in a Single Solution

The MFA solution implemented was AuthPoint from WatchGuard Technologies, which provides the necessary security to protect identities, assets, accounts and information.

Farinha explains that ROOX only works with one manufacturer per vertical, indicating that AuthPoint was the solution of choice due to "the capability and the set of centralised services that WatchGuard offers right from the start, the cost/benefit ratio, and the confidence it brings me, given the longevity of the solution and the knowledge of several clients who have already used it.

"We have a convincing roadmap, a market where the solution is already implemented and the cost/benefit of a one-stop shop," said the COO of ROOX, highlighting the advantage of the WatchGuard Technologies solution working through push notifications, simplifying the whole process.

Alice Lobo says that CCA Law Firm conducted a previous market research, after which they opted for the WatchGuard Technologies technology, provided by ROOX, "because of the security and robustness of this solution, as we already had the firewall of this manufacturer, there were more guarantees of effectiveness, in addition to the simplicity of implementation.

Fast Implementation and Immediate Results

The implementation time of this solution is very reduced, says Hugo Farinha, referring that the set up of the platform takes about a day. The activation phase of the solution included 100 users.

From ROOX, two human resources were used in this project, "one for the initial definition of the platform and another to monitor the policies and implementation with users", says Hugo Farinha, who makes a "very positive" balance of the implementation of WatchGuard Technologies AuthPoint.

"We have every interest that nothing goes wrong in terms of security and having a technology like this is very important, because if an incident occurs, both our and the client's reputation is at stake," concluded the COO of ROOX, considering this solution the "ideal fit" for CCA Law Firm. "Betting on WatchGuard's MFA technology is the right way to go for any organisation that has information systems, and will reassure us day-to-day in the IT management of the firm."

For her part, Alice Lobo expressed CCA Law Firm's satisfaction, pointing out that it is a "fluid, functional and intuitive solution that provides peace of mind to those who internally manage the firm's IT". "Right now, we know who is actually accessing the information."

In the law firm's future plans is the adoption of endpoint solutions from WatchGuard, in what will be "a natural step in our security strategy," concludes the information systems officer.

What is WatchGuard Authpoint?

WatchGuard AuthPoint is a multi-factor authentication (MFA) solution that can be fully managed in the WatchGuard Cloud. The user interface allows users to view reports and alerts, configure services and manage tokens from a single location.

This means that users can use a single dashboard to manage push notifications and validate access on multiple devices. This management is done intuitively and, above all, ensures that access requests are validated one by one by the MSP or service manager, blocking non-valid requests. Furthermore, access can be protected through hardware tokens, which generate one-time passwords (OTP: One-Time Passwords) and simplify the authentication process.