Customer Story: Zingerman’s Mail Order

Challenge

Tasked with meeting PCI DSS compliance for its high-volume mail-order business and maintaining sophisticated firewalls to protect its network, Zingerman’s Elph Morgan sought a long-term security partner that shared its high standards for quality products and stellar customer service, while also ensuring the flexibility to adapt to evolving security threats and regulatory requirements.

Solution

Blumira reviews and retains security logs while providing timely, actionable alerts to Zingerman’s team, ensuring they can quickly respond to potential threats. With a clear view of their network's security posture, the team is better equipped to prevent breaches before they occur.

Morgan assessed his company’s risk situation and sought a long-term partner that could not only offer robust threat detection but also streamline the response process with minimal impact on daily operations. By choosing Blumira, Morgan aimed to enhance Zingerman’s security strategy while maintaining their commitment to efficient, customer-focused service.

We evaluate our Blumira partnership with the same criteria we judge ourselves on: the quality of the product and the ability to deliver with great service.

Zingerman’s Mail Order

Zingerman’s is a collection of gourmet food companies and related businesses located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, focused on delivering high-quality food with an exceptional service experience. Starting as a small delicatessen in 1982, Zingerman’s Community of Businesses (ZCoB) now employs over 850 people across its nine businesses.

The Challenge

Faced with the challenge of meeting PCI DSS compliance for its high-volume mail-order business and ensuring its network was protected by advanced firewalls, Zingerman’s IT Manager, Elph Morgan sought a long-term security partner who matched the company’s commitment to high-quality products and exceptional customer service.

Zingerman’s ships more than 50% of its annual volume during just two weeks in December. Like all businesses accepting credit cards, Zingerman’s is required to adhere to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). PCI DSS compliance is an ongoing, evolving process involving data security management, policies, and procedures. With Zingerman’s IT team wholly dedicated to supporting its customers and ZCoB’s 850 staffers, Morgan sought a partner with deep security expertise.

The Solution

Blumira reviews and retains security logs while providing timely, actionable alerts to Zingerman’s team. Morgan assessed his company’s risk situation and sought a long-term partner. For Zingerman’s, it made financial sense to outsource security expertise, largely because only two of ZCoB’s nine businesses—its high-volume mail-order business and ZingNet, which houses employees’ personal data—bear a significant level of risk, requiring additional system security.

But not just any cybersecurity firm would do. Using Zingerman’s own guiding principles of high quality and great service as selection criteria made Blumira the obvious choice.

Results

“Reduced worry,” said Morgan, summing up the results of working with Blumira. “Because of the long-term relationship that we’ve had with Blumira, I have been able to relax and trust that the security needs have been taken care of.”

When it came to deciding between an automated security log monitoring service and one like Blumira’s, which combines advanced data analytics with human-powered reasoning, the choice was clear.

“I take comfort in knowing that we can talk to a real person about the issues, who can help us understand the validity of the threats and the long-term approach that we should be taking,” Morgan said.

He cites threat-level evaluation as one of the advantages of Blumira.

“There is some judgment on the part of the service, rather than alerting us to everything that happens, which would be like drinking from a fire hose," Morgan said. "I like that there’s some discrimination there and that it’s constantly changing what to alert us to.”

Blumira’s modern cloud SIEM platform helps Zingerman’s stay ahead of threats as the business evolves. Morgan believes that while new automated tools come to market every day, being able to talk to a human is better. He values the expertise of the Blumira team in helping guide long-term planning.

Additional Resources

PCI DSS Logging, Threat Detection and Response

When it comes to security event logging, reporting, audit trails, anomaly and threat detection, and tracking critical security control systems, Blumira helps you meet and exceed PCI DSS compliance. Blumira’s cloud-based SIEM and security platform is also PCI DSS compliant.

The Modern SIEM Evaluation Guide

Learn more about how to choose a SIEM that quickly detects and responds to threats—without significant overhead or the need for a fully staffed security team.