Background: Securing Global Hospitality and High-Value Assets
This hotel, a distinguished member of The Leading Hotels of the World, operates various facilities and duty-free shops globally, managing over 10,000 network endpoints via WAN connectivity. In the burgeoning hospitality industry, the surge of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives presented a significant challenge, exposing limitations in their existing security infrastructure.
Overcoming Legacy IPAM and Visibility Gaps
The hotel quickly realized its legacy IP Address Management (IPAM) solution was insufficient to secure its critical Property Management System (PMS). It particularly lacked support for the expansion of BYOD and mobile initiatives. The hotel also struggled to achieve complete visibility across all devices—including tablets, laptops, PDAs, POS systems, and transient guest devices—each posing a potential cybersecurity risk. The hotel thus sought an advanced, yet fundamental, cybersecurity solution to address these core challenges:
- Lack of Network Visibility: Incomplete insight into all devices across its global hotel facilities.
- Legacy IPAM Issues: Difficulties with their outdated IPAM, despite the need to maintain existing IP and cybersecurity policies.
- Ineffective User Authentication: Challenges in verifying and managing user identities for network access.
- Insufficient Endpoint Management: Inadequate patch and antivirus management, leading to endpoint security and compliance issues.
Solution: Genians’ NAC for Comprehensive Hospitality Security
Genians provided the hotel with a comprehensive user authentication and access control solution, seamlessly integrating with existing rules and policies without disrupting operations. Genians’ NAC capabilities delivered:
- 360-Degree Network Visibility: Providing a real-time “bird’s-eye view” of all IP-enabled devices through Genians’ non-disruptive sensing technology, instantly classifying various device types (e.g., employee tablets, PDAs, POS, guest devices).
- Enhanced IP Address Management: Simplified the complexity of managing critical IP/MAC addresses, preventing conflicts, and offering on-demand IP addressing provisioning. This also included seamless migration of their legacy IPAM policies.
- Simplified User/Device Authentication: Consolidated and managed user/device authentication by integrating with the HR database, ensuring effective verification.
- Automated Endpoint Compliance: Ensured timely installation and maintenance of all required software and patches, controlled peripheral devices (like USB and Bluetooth access), and enforced Windows security settings.
- Secure Onboarding & Isolation: Provided a safe and secure onboarding process for Guest and BYOD scenarios, while proactively blocking and isolating unknown, unauthorized, insecure, and rogue devices from the hotel networks.
- Comprehensive Audit Trail: Enabled a complete audit trail for all IP-enabled devices, facilitating compliance demonstration and audit report generation.
Summary: Fortified Foundation, Securely Scaled Hospitality
The hotel significantly enhanced its cybersecurity foundation by successfully transforming its legacy IPAM with Genians’ Network Access Control solution. By gaining clear visibility across its entire network (wired and wireless), the hotel can now securely manage its IT assets and provide a better, more secure network access experience for all employees and guests.
Delivering Superior Security and Scalability for Global Operations
This transformation not only improved the hotel’s security posture but also enabled it to securely scale its business. Genians’ solution ensures the security, availability, and regulatory adherence essential for a leading global hotel chain, paving the way for continued growth and unparalleled service delivery in the competitive hospitality industry.
