Demirören accelerates security operations of diverse sectors with Microsoft XDR and data security

Demirören, a prominent conglomerate in Türkiye, has a rich history and diverse portfolio spanning various industries. It began with Demirören Heavy Metal Industry in 1962, gradually diversifying into valves and pressure regulators. The company soon grew into a giant within Türkiye’s economy. Demirören Media is the country’s leading media group and Europe's fourth largest—encompassing newspaper, television, internet, and magazine publishing. Demirören's real estate portfolio includes the Kemer Country Project, featuring Kemerköy and tree houses spread over a vast area of land. Demirören also invests in education through Ata Educational Institutions, while Demirören's SansTech is dedicated to developing innovative and sustainable technology solutions.

Enhancing security and collaboration

Demirören’s involvement in diverse industries required a multifaceted approach to operations with securely managed access controls. However, its siloed security products for endpoint, network, or identity management often resulted in each product generating separate alerts, requiring Demirören’s security team to correlate and prioritize alerts manually. Demirören realized that due to the fragmented nature of its security infrastructure, there may be gaps between these products, making it difficult to gain a comprehensive view of the organization's security posture.

While the company already had a strong culture of mobile and remote work, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the company to accelerate its security efforts. "We had to quickly undertake technological infrastructure improvements to enable our staff to continue work without any disruption," remarks Cüneyt Taşyonan, Information Security and Risk Management Director at Demirören. “We realized we could use this as an opportunity to enhance group-wide security posture as well, focusing on incident-level visibility and automatic cyberattack disruption with extended detection and response (XDR).”

In partnership with CloudCan, Demirören turned to Microsoft security solutions for a centralized and consolidated approach to data and asset security across its operations in what had traditionally been a fragmented landscape. "The move to Microsoft 365 E5 was a key step in modernizing Demirören’s collaboration tools and security," highlights Hande Yağcı, Chief Marketing Officer at CloudCan. “Together, we deployed Microsoft 365 E5, Microsoft Viva, and Microsoft Teams. We included security components like Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Defender for various workloads. We also deployed Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Entra, and Intune to enable Demirören to manage and mitigate security risks.“ These changes aligned various business operations under a unified, secure collaboration system. The addition of data loss prevention (DLP), insider risk management, and communication compliance within Microsoft 365 E5 also reinforced Demirören's security infrastructure.

A move towards the future of work

Demirören experienced significant improvements in its operational security and employee productivity. "Migration to Microsoft security solutions has enabled us to evolve our security strategy and better address the evolving cyberthreats," remarks Taşyonan. “We have adopted the Zero Trust model, consolidated and integrated our security solutions, safeguarded our business-critical data, and enhanced our threat detection and response capabilities with Microsoft Sentinel and Defender. Now, we can proactively manage risks, improve our compliance posture, and foster a collaborative security culture.”

Furthermore, the integrated Microsoft security solutions transformed the Demirören security team’s experience by enabling streamlined workflows, improved visibility, efficient collaboration, automated remediation, and increased confidence. “Microsoft empowers us to work more effectively, make informed decisions, and protect the organization's assets and data from evolving cyberthreats,” adds Taşyonan.

By enabling seamless, secure, and efficient collaboration and content management from any location, Demirören also saw a notable shift in work habits. "Time lost in traffic and other delays disappeared. Microsoft 365 E5 turned out to be a significant contributor to our staff’s productivity when working remotely," highlights Taşyonan. This change allowed employees to work in more flexible conditions, maintaining a good work-life balance. The field staff’s experience transformed the most. "Our field reporters adapted to shooting, editing, and uploading news directly from the field, bypassing the need to return to the office,” shares Taşyonan.

Optimized cloud environments and performance also resulted in cost savings. Demirören runs an Azure Machine Learning layer to analyze its applications both periodically and in the long term. It receives reports and information through CloudCan’s Managed Services, enabling Demirören to make better decisions and optimize performance. Having this additional layer of data enabled Demirören to save costs and reallocate funds to other projects, filling technological gaps.

With a robust foundation, Demirören is now ready to navigate the evolving business challenges with agility and innovation. “With Microsoft 365 E5 as our technological cornerstone, we are looking ahead to a future where our business is not just reacting to changes but actively shaping them,” adds Demirören Medya CTO and DTech Cloud CEO Yavuz Emir Beyribey. “We are excited for a smarter, more connected future.”