European Accountancy Firm Proactively Responds to Cybersecurity Risk

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PROACTIVELY RESPONDING TO CYBERSECURITY RISK

A large European organization that provides accounting, tax, and payroll services to multinationals approached Searchlight Cyber as it undertook a company-wide initiative to bolster its cybersecurity and defense mechanisms. The accountancy firm had been made aware of a number of cyberattacks impacting its suppliers and clients and made the decision to build out its cybersecurity tooling. This included an audit of dark web intelligence tools to find a solution that would help it to proactively identify and mitigate risks to the company and its customers.

The Managing Director of the accountancy firm explained: “Intelligence that some of our suppliers and clients had been subjected to cyberattacks sparked an internal initiative to gain visibility into our exposure on the dark web. We’d previously only thought of the dark web as a collection source for investigating a cyberattack after the event but these incidents highlighted that we needed to be more proactive than that. With our cybersecurity objective in mind, we decided to audit the dark web intelligence solutions on the market.”

SEARCHLIGHT IDENTIFIES DATA LEAK DURING TRIAL

Searchlight immediately stood out from its competitors thanks to how quickly and easily it was able to set up the trial. Where other vendors told the accountancy firm it would take weeks to set up and customize a company profile, Searchlight was able to onboard the organization straight away and immediately identified relevant threats.

During the trial, the firm identified credentials relating to their employees that had been leaked from a supplier: the company’s employee benefits provider. The supplier had not disclosed the cyberattack or the leak of confidential information to the accountancy firm, confirming the need to monitor the dark web for data breaches that the organization was not aware of. Once the accountancy firm had selected Searchlight and implemented its dark web monitoring and investigation capabilities, the platform also highlighted vulnerabilities relating to their servers that they had not been aware of before, which have now been successfully patched.

“We didn’t realize how much information was available on the dark web until we used Searchlight and the results were eye opening,” said the Managing Director. “In one case, we even identified a supplier breach that has not been disclosed to us. We now have a much better understanding of how incidents such as ransomware attacks originate on the dark web and we are more prepared for identifying and responding to future threats.

“The biggest benefit of Searchlight is that we are able to get the intelligence we need without having to invest additional time or manpower. The other dark web intelligence tools we looked at required a lot of time in setup and maintenance but Searchlight has managed to streamline its product through automation. Its tools are easy to use and continuously monitor the dark web on our behalf, automatically alerting us to threats that could impact our business.”

COMPLIANCE THROUGH DARK WEB MONITORING

One of the accountancy firm’s cybersecurity goals was to achieve ISO 27001:2022 compliance ahead of the October 2025 deadline. Searchlight not only enabled the firm to meet with the new threat intelligence requirements of the updated standard but also to pass the far more stringent customer audits the accountancy firm has to undertake to comply with various laws and cybersecurity regulations around the world.

“As a service provider for large organizations that operate across multiple markets we have to be compliant with numerous cybersecurity laws and regulations from across the globe. Searchlight has helped us to meet the requirements of our customers and demonstrate the proactive measures we have in place to auditors, assuring them of our commitment to data security.

“More than that, Searchlight’s dark web intelligence has given us a competitive advantage, improving our credibility and ranking against our competitors. Accountancy firms naturally hold a lot of sensitive information and we operate in an environment where customers are increasingly conscious about cybersecurity and are rightly asking more questions of their service providers. With Searchlight, we are able to demonstrate that we are going above and beyond by monitoring the dark web for any indication of a threat or sign that any sensitive data has been compromised.”

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