Project Details
Client Snapshot
A global heavy-equipment manufacturer serving the surface and underground mining sectors, operating dozens of assembly plants and service depots across five continents. More than 15,000 engineers, mechanics, and field-support staff depend on the firm's IT backbone to coordinate design changes, parts logistics, and predictive maintenance data. Operations comply with reliability and safety regulations including MSHA and ISO 45001, driving strict uptime and cybersecurity expectations.
The Challenge
Recent industry reports showed a 200% surge in Active Directory-based attacks on mining suppliers, and the customer's identity environment was a concentrated target. Over a dozen Active Directory forests, some more than 20 years old, contained thousands of user accounts. A single breach could trigger costly operational stops and regulatory fines.
The core problem was visibility. With no modern monitoring tools in place, the small security team had no reliable way to detect exploited accounts, hacking attempts, or signals of compromise. The environment created fertile ground for attackers:
Multiple AD forests, some over 20 years old, with inconsistent Group Policies.
Stale administrative accounts that hadn't been audited in years.
No behavioural baseline for detecting reconnaissance, credential theft, or lateral movement.
A six-person security team responsible for the entire global identity footprint.
Legacy Active Directory forests, left unmonitored, put production uptime at risk. Executives demanded a rapid security overhaul.
Our Approach
X-Centric weighed three options, extending the existing SIEM, rebuilding AD, or overlaying Microsoft Defender for Identity. The team chose Defender for Identity for two reasons: speed, and native alignment with the customer's existing Microsoft 365 E5 licenses.
1
Deployed Defender for Identity sensors on all domain controllers across the global AD footprint.
2
Integrated with Microsoft Entra ID for end-to-end hybrid identity visibility across on-premises and cloud environments.
3
Tuned alerts, established machine-learning behavioural baselines, and built automated ticket routing through Microsoft Defender XDR correlation.
4
Trained internal analysts and handed off operational playbooks for ongoing detection, response, and continuous tuning.
Outcomes
The rollout produced measurable, quantified results across detection speed, operational uptime, and analyst capacity.
Metric | Before | After | Benefit |
|---|---|---|---|
Mean time-to-detect identity attack | 48 hours | 28 minutes | -96% |
Unplanned AD-related downtime | 2 hrs/quarter | 0 hours | $150K production loss avoided |
Incidents auto-resolved by ML playbooks | 0/month | 35/month | ~0.6 FTE freed |
Microsoft Secure Score | 43% | 79% | +36 points |
Analysts now receive contextual, ranked alerts instead of raw log floods.
Shift hand-offs start with “zero active ID threats” dashboards rather than triage backlog.
IT-OT coordination drills cut containment time below one hour.
Automation boosted analyst productivity by 60%, postponing the need to hire additional Tier-1
responders.
The deployment laid the foundation for Zero Trust, fast-tracking MFA rollouts, conditional access,
and future OT/IoT onboarding.
Client Review
“We were looking at a hiring round we couldn’t justify and a threat trend we couldn’t ignore. The Defender for Identity rollout closed both gaps in eight weeks, and the team got their evenings back.”
David Kue
Global Manufacturer
What This Means For Your Business
If you operate critical infrastructure or production environments, identity is your most likely attack surface, and the threat trend is moving the wrong way. The fastest path to measurable risk reduction usually isn’t a new tool; it’s activating capabilities you already license. An 8-week Defender for Identity rollout can take detection from days to minutes, often before your next board cycle.
Project information
Client:
Global Manufacturer
Industry:
Manufacturing
Solution:
Cybersecurity · Identity Security
Engagment:
8-week deployment