The organization is a leading UAE-based multinational conglomerate, headquartered in Abu Dhabi, operating over 250 hypermarkets and retail stores across six GCC countries. Serving millions of customers daily, the group has over 50,000 employees and is a major force in retail, food processing, logistics, and real estate. The organization sources products from 85 countries to mitigate supply risks and ensure the maintenance of superior quality products throughout the year. As part of its commitment to digital transformation, operational efficiency, and global expansion, the organization seeks to strengthen its cybersecurity posture to help drive innovation and scale securely while maintaining leadership in the modern retail sector.
Background and Key Challenges
Organizations in the retail industry are undergoing rapid digital transformation with migration to the cloud and the usage of connected devices to enhance operational efficiency and customer experience. Unfortunately, this increasing digitalization has also led to the expansion of the threat landscape, where they have to address the exponentially growing, sophisticated threats that are continuously evolving. Retailers are often faced with unique cybersecurity challenges that have to be addressed with both robust as well as adaptive solutions. The multinational conglomerate also faced several challenges, including,
Compliance risk was a key concern for the organization, especially around the USB device usage, as it lacked comprehensive monitoring and control over the network. This put the organization at risk of non-compliance with regulatory frameworks such as PCI DSS. Furthermore, the existing antivirus solution provided only basic USB protection and failed to capture the detailed logging capabilities and usage policy enforcement, or investigate incidents involving removable media. This left the organization susceptible to data exfiltration and insider threats.
As the organization embraced the cloud, the security teams faced limited visibility into cloud-hosted devices and workloads. By scaling its operations beyond traditional network boundaries, it became rather difficult to detect threats and enhance the security posture.
The Solution: Inspira Enterprise Approach
To address the cybersecurity challenges and meet the goals, the Client engaged the services of Inspira Enterprise, a global cybersecurity risk management service provider with rich experience in implementing large cybersecurity deployment programs.
Inspira’s team of experts reviewed the organization’s networks and endpoints and proposed a robust solution to address all the existing security challenges. The Solution was tailored to,
The Inspira team assessed, configured, and implemented policy-based enforcement through the XDR platform to allow only authorized USB devices while automatically blocking unknown or rogue devices. Customized configurations and policies enabled detailed monitoring of user activity, logging, and centralized policy enforcement to meet compliance standards. This enabled visibility and policy-based control over the USB activity with audit records to support PCI DSS and internal compliance requirements.
Customized policies were implemented, which enabled real-time visibility and behavioral monitoring of internal users. This process reduced the risk of data exfiltration and malicious data transfers while effectively addressing insider threats.
Optimized access control policies, approved device exceptions, and lightweight endpoint agents ensured secure POS operations while minimizing the impact on system performance.
By leveraging telemetry correlation, behavioral analytics, and real-time threat intelligence, the solution enabled early detection of misconfigurations, unauthorized access, and lateral movement within the network.
The solution delivered unified, end-to-end visibility across both cloud and on-premises infrastructures, empowering security teams to detect, investigate, and respond to threats proactively and at scale.
Impact of the Solution – Benefits
Enhanced Endpoint Security
The solution successfully blocked rogue USB devices, significantly reducing the risks associated with data exfiltration and malware infection through removable media.
Compliance with Regulatory Requirements
PCI DSS compliance was achieved by enforcing strict USB access policies, maintaining detailed activity logs, and centralized audit visibility.
Improved Proactive Threat Detection
Greater visibility across both on-premises and cloud environments enabled early detection of threats, misconfigurations, and unauthorized access.
Increased SOC Efficiency
Accurate, real-time data across the ecosystem led to reduced false positives and streamlined investigation workflows.
Operational Continuity
It ensured smooth and uninterrupted POS operations while retaining visibility and control over endpoint and device activity.
About Inspira Enterprise
Inspira Enterprise is a global Cybersecurity, Data Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence services provider with a presence in North America, ASEAN, the Middle East, Africa, and India. It delivers adaptive, intelligent, and customer-centric solutions to various industries, including Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI), Healthcare, Public Sector, Manufacturing, Education, Oil and Gas, and Utilities.
The organization’s expertise in AI-driven cybersecurity enables comprehensive protection against evolving cyber threats to help protect enterprises. It leverages advanced analytics and AI-powered threat detection to offer real-time visibility and proactive risk management, strengthening organizational security. At the core of Inspira’s offerings is iSMART2—an advanced AI-driven platform delivering continuous monitoring, analytics, and actionable insights to mitigate risks and stay ahead of emerging threats.
With 1600+ professionals, Inspira successfully delivers complex transformation projects for 550+ clients. Its AI and cybersecurity capabilities empower businesses to build resilient, future-ready digital ecosystems. Learn more: www.inspiraenterprise.com.
