The Western Bay of Plenty District Council Protects Critical Infrastructure With Platformisation

Summary

In response, this local government agency consolidated networking and endpoint security into a single platform, right-sized to meet their organisation’s needs. By partnering with Theta, they found Palo Alto Networks offered tighter integration, increased automation, and near real-time response to attacks. This modern approach - masterminded by Theta - protects essential public services while driving unprecedented agility, simplicity, and efficiency.

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Results

Driving agility, simplicity, and efficiency with consolidated cybersecurity

‍NZ$400,000  

Saved switching to centralised networking and security management.     ‍

50x  

Increase in network performance from 2MB/s to 100MB/s.

99.99%  

Availability of OT network devices.

100% ROI  

Achieved in 6 months

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Products

• Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFW)
  
  • SD-WAN for NGFW subscription

• Cloud-Delivered Security Services
  
  • Threat Prevention
  • Advanced URL Filtering
  • GlobalProtect®
  • WildFire®
  • DNS

• Cortex XDR®

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Challenge

The need to modernise and simplify local government security

The Bay of Plenty is one of the biggest population growth areas in New Zealand. The Council had outgrown its security infrastructure and was unable to see what was happening in the network due to the limited visibility and control of its outdated security technology. They wanted to proactively address the security limitations and concerns. The Council was relying on their 1990s legacy cybersecurity technology to defend against highly sophisticated 21st century threats. They knew it was time for a radically new cybersecurity blueprint to secure and simplify public services delivery. This blueprint needed to:

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• Satisfy the Council’s top priority of delivering services to meet their requirements and those of their constituents.
• Keep pace with the pressing demand for trusted, digital-first public services delivery from a fast-growing local population.
• Enable complete visibility and control over network and endpoint security.
• Replace expensive and unreliable operational technology (OT) network links that monitored geographically remote water and wastewater plants, to minimise potential disruption.
• Eliminate implicit trust and continuously validate each stage of digital interaction for a zero trust architecture.

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Richard Gilligan, Technology Operations Team Leader, Western Bay of Plenty District Council, says,

“Prior to partnering with Theta and implementing Palo Alto Networks, we were responding to incidents after they occurred rather than preventing them. Now, we can address any issues or incidents immediately.”

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Solution

A connected suite reduces risk, increases efficiency, and accelerates citizen-centric services

The Council needed to find an experienced partner they could trust to put them on the right path and complete the work within the budget. They chose Theta, whose Principal Consultant Stephan van Lieshout recommended Palo Alto Networks. From his past experience in working with other New Zealand organisations, van Lieshout says,

“Palo Alto Networks solutions were effective and could be scaled down to effectively meet the needs of small-to-medium businesses [SMBs]; it’s not just for large enterprises.”

The Western Bay of Plenty District Council standardised on our complete platform strategy to strengthen cyber resilience across their entire infrastructure. A connected suite of ML-powered NGFWs reduced risk, increased efficiency, and supported agile citizen-centric digital services. This suite includes Cloud-Delivered Security Services (CDSS) with a GlobalProtect Always-On VPN and SD-WAN for NGFW subscription, as well as Cortex XDR endpoint security.

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Results

Consolidated cybersecurity ignites agility, simplicity, and efficiency

Shielded the public authority from cyberthreats.

The Council has re-architected the entire network to provide complete, unified visibility, and control across more than 60 business services. ML-powered, cloud-based network security stops unknown zero-day attacks. GlobalProtect secures the Council’s applications their hybrid workforce uses - whether they’re at home, in the office, or on the go.

Cortex XDR endpoint security delivers protection across the organisation with AI-driven prevention and detection that analyses data from any source to stop sophisticated attacks. Gilligan says,

“We conduct penetration testing regularly, but there’s no anxiety among the team as they have confidence that all threats will be detected and resolved in a timely manner.”

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Saved NZ$400,000

“The solution paid for itself in 6 months when we removed managed network services. We’ve saved at least NZ$400,000 over 6 years; for an SMB, that’s substantial. Not only that, but the network is much faster,” says Gilligan.

The Council achieved savings through the operational costs, automation, improved troubleshooting, and network throughput.

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Delivered 99.99% availability of OT network devices

The Council uses the firewalls to support the remote sites and provide highly resilient 4G, fibre, or Starlink access. This creates an OT network with 99.99% uptime in challenging remote locations, including uninterrupted monitoring of water sites for nonstop operation.

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Reduced IT team’s time for security to just 5%

Staff can work smarter and faster now, delivering agile public services that increase constituent satisfaction. For example, staff can now monitor and take advantage of greater network bandwidth. Security commands just 5% of the team’s time, freeing resources to focus on local government policy, audits, and other tasks. Tight integration enables the team to manage security and SD-WAN on a single, intuitive interface - not a patchwork of fragmented monitoring devices.

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Reduced time to detect and respond to near real time

If an endpoint is attacked, the Council can respond at lightning speed. A complete picture of each attack, including one-click root cause analysis, enables the team to swiftly stop attacks anywhere in the environment. Gilligan says,

“The New Zealand time zone means we’re often the first country to see a new threat. Cortex XDR uses machine learning to profile behaviour and instantly detect anomalies indicative of an attack.”

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Complete confidence in the right solution

Both the Council and Theta have complete confidence that Palo Alto Networks is the right solution currently and in the future.

“Theta’s security expertise and experience led us on an affordable, right-sized security transformation journey with Palo Alto Networks, which has been an absolute game changer,” shares Gilligan.

Theta’s van Lieshout concurs,

“Palo Alto Networks solutions are best in class. We’re committed to partnering with Palo Alto Networks and our customers alike, as the cybersecurity leader is constantly on the cusp of innovation.”

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Theta can support Palo Alto's best-in-class solutions to improve security for your organisation. Learn more at Network Security (for NGFWs), Prisma SD-WAN and Cortex XDR pages.