Borås City

Purpose to streamline and improve

Every department and administration in Borås City should continuously initiate new projects and take initiatives to improve efficiency.

Manually trying to detect cyberattacks in the sea of event data from the city’s IT environment consumed extensive resources and time for the IT staff. Even though several technical tools were in place, a lot of time was required to correlate, interpret, analyze, and process data. It was a stressful and often monotonous job, where it was also difficult to know if one was looking for attacks in the right place with the right methodology. Cyberattacks are often extremely dynamic in nature, constantly changing shape and tactics to achieve their goals without being detected.

In Borås City’s digital strategy, it is stated that departments and administrations should continuously initiate new projects and take initiatives to improve efficiency. Automation is also explicitly mentioned in the strategy to achieve high quality and efficient operations: “Automation should be utilized where tasks can be replaced.” One of several successful examples that translates “strategy into solution” is the introduction of automated detection, analysis, and alerting of cyberattacks. The solution was delivered by NetNordic, one of the city’s strategic suppliers in cybersecurity and network infrastructure.

Machine Learning and AI Where They Truly Belong

NetNordic has helped Borås City implement a solution based on machine learning that builds up BIOCs (Behavior Indicators Of Compromise) to trigger relevant alarms for cyberattacks and incidents very accurately. The solution eliminates a previously resource-intensive manual task for the IT staff, where artificial intelligence now drives the automation. The solution is based on Cortex XDR from the manufacturer Palo Alto Networks, where the methodology ensures that the IT staff only receives relevant and timely alerts for events that require action. The solution is also integrated with the city’s preventive protection against vulnerabilities and malware, creating a very effective and cohesive protection ecosystem. Borås City can today focus on proactive and preventive security work, fully in line with how it wishes to conduct its IT operations.

Borås City Should Offer Simple, Safe, and Secure Services

Digital services improve conditions for those living, working, and visiting the city. The city’s mission is to facilitate and enhance people’s everyday lives. In Borås, digitization should be used to free the city’s staff for more qualified tasks close to those they serve. Security work is a naturally integrated part of the city’s digitization through proactivity and strong preventive IT protection. At the same time, one does not take the digital protection work and its results for granted, but recognizes that there is also a need for the ability to detect and act on deviations, attacks, and incidents. Here, sophisticated technology is now used to validate the results of the preventive security work.