Securing and safeguarding Bidvest’s employees, customers and partners from email phishing, spoofing and impersonation attacks

Cybercriminals are becoming increasingly skilled at sending emails from any email address, using the brand name of any company they pick and with all the correct styling, making it virtually impossible for receivers to spot the fraudster.

The security of the Bidvest brand and its stakeholders is a priority for the company, and “significant attention has been given to the identification and management of cybersecurity risks” across the Group’s 25 companies.

The fraudulent use of Bidvest’s brand identity, impersonation of employees, and the cloning of its website were identified as risks at Bidvest. To ensure that the highest security standards for email security were in place across its entire email environment, the company brought in Sendmarc and its implementation partners Executive Solutions, BUI, and Cube IT.

Bidvest’s email real estate is vast with 140 registered names, 85 of which are actively in use. Each year over 132 000 employees on four continents send over 15 million emails bearing a registered Bidvest name, and over 300 000 customers receive email from the company annually.

Bidvest’s requirements

1. 1Fast & efficient implementationProtecting Bidvest’s large cyber real estate and extensive stakeholder groups was identified as a priority.
2. 2Technical capability & qualificationsEmail is the Group’s most-used business communication tool, and the highest security standards and protocols needed to be implemented.
3. 3Expertise, experience & dedicationIt was critical to ensure that the Group’s email environment is protected from fraudulent use. Making sure employees, customers and partners can be confident that emails with a Bidvest company name are the real thing required specialist skills in this area.

What the client had to say:

Complexities of the Bidvest's environment

• Diversified group with multiple stakeholders
• Hundred of active and dormant domains and subdomain names
• Limited to zero visibility of their email ecosystems
• Breadth of orchestration and coordination required across all group companies
• Significant number of third- party email service providers sending emails on behalf of group companies
• Multiple levels of email security across the group and inconsistent application of SPF and DKIM protocols

Results

• 85 active domains now at the highest compliance standard: p=reject
• 15 million emails sent annually are now authenticated as the real thing with all others rejected
• Environments secured and safeguarded (p=reject) within 90 days
• Full visibility of entire email environment (active and inactive domains)
• Employees, customers and partners protected against brand name abuse
• Reporting and IT dashboards provide real time view for real-time action and prevention
• Trained IT team to ensure familiarity with Sendmarc’s platform
• Lower costs and reduced time to implementation compared to other providers due to Sendmarc platform and automation
• Email environment derisked and fully compliant with highest protocols
• Automation and intelligence maintaining p=reject status
• Proactive management of environment
• Reputation of Bidvest group protected from email fraud