Vodafone Türkiye

Launch of new divisions prompted search for new solution

When Vodafone Türkiye established separate divisions managing digital payments and finance, it realized that the data privacy rules it would need to comply with would be stricter than those within just the telecommunications operations. The economic and reputational impact of a potential data breach is always high, but never more so than when clients’ financial data is at risk. The organization already leveraged a database activity monitoring solution to identify potential security threats, policy violations, and suspicious behavior. However, as Basak Gencer, Cyber Security Senior Manager for Vodafone Türkiye explains, this posed some challenges: “We operate in highly regulated industries, namely telecommunications and banking, and are regularly audited. We struggled to deliver the necessary reports in a timely manner due to the slow archive retrieval of our existing tool. We also felt it was an expensive solution and the vendor was not particularly responsive to our specific requests for enhancements and updates. As we were introducing new IT infrastructures for our digital payments and finance divisions, it was a good opportunity to look for a new database activity monitoring solution.”

Relevant expertise and solution capabilities make a winning combination

Trusted partner Kafein Technology Solutions was included in the company’s detailed request for information (RFI). The requirements outlined focused on the need for ease of use, clear reporting for compliance purposes, improved visibility, integration capability, database compatibility, advanced real-time alarm rules, and high performance without disrupting other business processes. Baki Aktürk, Director of Sales and Business Development at Kafein, comments: “The client team compared four leading database activity monitoring solutions, including the incumbent solution and our recommendation for Voltage Database Activity Monitoring (VDAM). The technical line-by-line capability comparison led to the decision for a proof-of-concept (POC) for Voltage Database Activity Monitoring, that we managed. We showed the client not only that the Voltage solution had all the capabilities required, but also that both Kafein and Micro Focus (now OpenText) have the expertise to provide comprehensive customer support. This sealed Vodafone Türkiye’s decision for VDAM.”

VDAM is designed to facilitate compliance with regulatory requirements by providing detailed audit logs and reports. It also monitors and records all database activities to allow organizations to reconstruct events, identify the root cause of a breach, and understand the scope of a security incident, all through user-friendly reports or dashboards. It improves privacy and data security posture management through insights into applications interacting with sensitive data. This happens in real time and generates alerts for any policy violations.

With our previous solution, log archive retrieval time would be on average 10 days and for large sized archives could exceed 20 days, leaving us at serious risk of high noncompliance penalties. We were delighted to see that VDAM reduced our average archive retrieval time to three days, avoiding hefty penalties.

Archive retrieval time covering 10,000+ databases slashed from 10 days to three days

Following the successful POC, Kafein worked with the client team to implement VDAM across various databases, including Hadoop, PostgreSQL, MySQL, ElasticSearch, Oracle, MongoDB, GaussDB, and others. In total, more than 4,000 databases running on 850 database servers are included in the implementation. With extensive customization work by Kafein on rules, correlations, and alarms, performance is now lightning fast, and processes have been streamlined.

“We are required by KVKK, the Turkish equivalent of GDPR, to respond to any customer data queries within a set timeframe,” says Gencer. “However, with our previous solution, log archive retrieval time would be on average 10 days and for large sized archives could exceed 20 days, leaving us at serious risk of high non-compliance penalties. We were delighted to see that VDAM reduced our average archive retrieval time to three days, avoiding hefty penalties.”

The cybersecurity team values the real-time information used to rapidly respond to incidents. We were also pleased to highlight that the total cost of ownership (TCO) for VDAM is over 50 percent lower than the previous solution, thanks to a more flexible and cost-effective license structure.

Full regulation compliance, cybersecurity support, and 50% TCO savings

Vodafone Türkiye regularly needs to retrieve historical data from databases for domestic and international regulation purposes, to comply with requirements laid out by KVKK, PCI DSS, and the Turkish Information and Communication Technologies Authority. VDAM supports easy management of data retention requirements so that no data is held for longer than absolutely necessary. The user-friendly reporting capabilities enable the cybersecurity teams to respond faster to any incidents. Using the real-time reports, they can take immediate action to mitigate risks, minimize the impact of security incidents, and prevent further compromise of sensitive data. The solution quickly correlates and stores audit information outside the local database, ensuring continued performance of lead applications. This helps monitor specific database activities and prevents log manipulation or tampering.

Aktürk concludes: “Our client is pleased with the VDAM implementation. It has drastically reduced the archive retrieval time, safeguarding the organization against non-compliance penalties. The cybersecurity team values the real-time information used to rapidly respond to incidents. We were also pleased to highlight that the total cost of ownership (TCO) for VDAM is over 50 percent lower than the previous solution, thanks to a more flexible and cost-effective license structure.”