Customer Story: Midway Swiss Turn

Midway Swiss Turn

Midway Swiss Turn started in Smithville, Ohio in 1977 under the name General Tool Company. It was founded by James Rahz, who is now the current President of this family-owned and operated company. It began with a single Bridgeport Milling machine in his garage, and now proudly houses a dozen machines in a 10,000 square foot facility. Among the newest machines are three Swiss-type CNC turning centers that eliminate secondary operations when making complex parts. The employees of Midway Swiss Turn have the combined experience of over 50 years in the machining trade.

The Challenge: Seeking SIEM for SMB, CMMC & 100% Cloud Environment

Jayme Rahz, CEO of Midway Swiss Turn, runs the family business and handles everything, including IT and security. They had a part-time IT employee helping implement the technical compliance requirements for CMMC (Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification), one of which included putting a SIEM in place for logging, detection and response. Their unique environment was entirely serverless and 100% cloud, so they needed a solution that didn’t require an on-premises installation.

“We were primarily looking to comply with CMMC. I thought it was just another program we had to implement and it came with a lot of frustrations, but after our email incident, I realized this isn’t just a program the government is forcing me to implement, but something that we need,” Rahz said.

They initially looked at 50-100 different vendors, including Arctic Wolf, Splunk and Crowdstrike – but disqualified most as they were too costly or too complex for their company to handle on their own. They were looking for a solution that was easy to manage by non-technical or security experts, and would provide greater security value for their investment.

The Solution: Blumira’s Free SIEM Detected a M365 BEC Attack

Rahz found Blumira while doing a search online, and, drawn to the website’s messaging for small businesses with no IT department, signed up for the Free SIEM version for Microsoft 365.

“We set it up and said, ‘that’s so easy, this is great!’ Then we left our free account open, and a year and half later, got a finding from Blumira that there was suspicious activity within our email,” Rahz said. “There was a big problem – someone had hacked into our email and was sending everyone else emails like it’s coming from us to our customers, saying, ‘hey we’ve updated our accounts receivable, send us a check to our bank account.’”

Midway Swiss Turn was the target of a classic business email compromise (BEC) attack, which is when an attacker tries to trick email recipients into sending money to them, using a legitimate email address.

“Blumira found the email attack, alerted us, and we were able to address it before any damage was done,” Rahz said.

After the incident, Rahz realized implementing a security solution was more than just about satisfying compliance.

“That incident really changed my view of implementing cybersecurity to – we really need to do this because we are at risk and in danger. Attackers are targeting small businesses like us, because we don’t have IT. Regardless of CMMC, this is something we need to do to keep us up and running,” Rahz said.

Journey From Free SIEM to XDR Platform

After a sales person called to follow up and inform them that Blumira Agent was in development and would be released soon, they upgraded from being a Free SIEM user straight to XDR Platform.

“Blumira is exactly what we need; it’s like you made it just for our environment. It suits cloud-based and small businesses. It suits the fact that we don’t have an IT department and supports us working with cybersecurity consultants as responders. I could not be more pleased,” Rahz said.

Built for SMBs as a cloud-based solution, Blumira’s platform is designed to be deployed in hours using existing teams and resources, and helps teach IT or other nontechnical staff how to manage their own security.

“We looked at every possible vendor out there; we needed a solution that worked in a serverless, cloud-based environment and didn’t need a strong or dedicated IT department. I also needed a program that had the ability to ingest logs, alert me to, ‘here’s a potential problem, here’s what this means, if you don’t understand it, here’s the person to talk to and walk through this with you,” Rahz said.

Setting up new machines with endpoint monitoring and response is easy enough for their CEO to do on their own.

“Deployment is straightforward and easy, even for me. If I get a new employee, I can set up their computer with a Blumira Agent myself,” Rahz said.

In addition to the platform, Rahz has had a positive experience working with Blumira’s 24/7 SecOps team to help support their onboarding and technical assistance.

“The interactions I’ve had with the Blumira team have been fantastic; they made implementation really easy. The responsiveness to when there’s an issue, and how quickly you guys walk us through it is great,” Rahz said. “If I have a problem, I can get an immediate response with what we’re seeing and how we can fix it, speaking to me in a language I can understand. I really appreciate that willingness to help us when we need it most, and also when I’m stressed out. Your team members have been great.”

As far as return on their investment, Midway Swiss Turn was able to save money with Blumira’s platform that identified, notified and helped them resolve the Microsoft 365 business email compromise (BEC) attack.

“It would only have taken one person to send money through that email, and we would have lost tens of thousands of dollars. Based on that one incident, we’re going to see money savings in the future, especially by avoiding those business interruptions,” Rahz said.