Industry
Professional services, architecture and design firm
Employees
600
Region
Sydney, Australia
TrendAI Vision One™ solutions:
THE CHALLENGE
Securing client trust and design IP amid rapid AI adoption
COX Architecture is one of Australia’s most prominent architectural practices, employing roughly 600 people across seven design studios nationwide. The firm delivers architecture, planning, urban design, and interior design services across a diverse portfolio of projects. Clients trust COX with sensitive creative briefs and early-stage concepts, relying on the firm to protect their data throughout the process.
The security challenge at COX extends beyond the typical enterprise threat model. Their designers are creative professionals first, early adopters of AI-assisted tools, and active users with shadow coding projects made accessible by generative AI. Sensitive architectural drawings move continuously between internal teams and a broad ecosystem of external collaborators with varied security practices, including engineers, builders, and consultants.
“Protecting data is one of the reasons I lose sleep at night,” says Chief Information Officer Moreno Sartorello. “In our industry, trust is everything. Reputation matters as much as intellectual property, and a data leak is extremely difficult to manage.”
"With TrendAI Vision One™, we see more, triage faster, and connect dots we couldn’t connect before. When an alert surfaces, we know exactly what we’re looking at and what to do next.”
Moreno Sartorello
CIO, COX Architecture
THE SOLUTION
AI-enabled visibility and correlation
For Sartorello, closing gaps without slowing the firm’s creative work became his mission. In the past, managing security with multiple point solutions meant piecing together signals from disconnected tools, a slow, fragmented process that left the team exposed. Consolidating security with the TrendAI Vision One™ platform changed how the team operates. Investigations that once required jumping between dashboards now yield visibility, with AI automatically correlating events across the environment.
A daily risk score the board trusts
COX Architecture translates correlated data into a colour-coded risk index via TrendAI Vision One™ Cyber Risk Exposure Management (CREM). This empowers the team to visualise, prioritise, and mitigate risk effectively. Risk scoring has become a strategic tool that Sartorello checks each morning. When the organisation’s risk index climbs toward the high thirties, he knows action is required.
“CREM represents risk with colors and numbers, and that changes the conversation entirely. You are not trying to explain a technical risk. You are showing someone exactly where the organisation stands and what needs to happen next,” he notes.
Around-the-clock coverage for a lean team
With just one full-time security analyst, COX needed continuous, expert-backed coverage across its studios. Through Excite Cyber, their Cyber SOC Services delivered 24/7 monitoring and response, extending protection from the largest production sites to the smallest locations. To validate the model, COX ran a red teaming exercise with TrendAI™, an uncomfortable but decisive undertaking
“The red teaming exercise showed us where we were vulnerable and how to improve. They exposed our weaknesses so we could close them,” says Sartorello. The findings informed a structured remediation program that strengthened COX’s overall security posture.
RESULTS
Faster triage and a board empowered to act on risk
The clearest gain for COX has been speed. Triage that once meant chasing signals across separate tools now happens in one console. The team acts on prioritised alerts instead of assembling the picture from scratch. Zero-day response has tightened from a scramble into a structured two-day plan, and that rhythm holds even as zero-days arrive faster than ever. “With TrendAI Vision One™, we see more, triage faster, and connect dots we couldn’t connect before,” says Sartorello. “When an alert surfaces, we know exactly what we’re looking at and what to do next.”
The shift in how COX communicates risk has been just as significant. For years, Sartorello struggled to give his board a clear answer when asked whether the firm was secure, making it difficult to secure investment or drive accountability. The CREM daily risk score changed the dynamic. Security is now a standing agenda item, backed by a number the board can track, challenge, and act on. Remediation gets funded, and risks get prioritised. “I can walk into any executive or decision-making discussion and show a precise, current view of our cyber risk, so we can make decisions based on facts and data,” Sartorello says.
CUSTOMER SERVICE AS A DIFFERENTIATOR
Quicker investigations and risk the board can measure
For Sartorello, TrendAI™ sits in a different category from the rest of the security vendors they work with. The relationship runs deeper, built on regular cadence calls, responsive technical support, and a shared educational journey that has matured COX’s security posture over several years. “With TrendAI™, I am working with a partner rather than a supplier. Their priorities—value and integrity—align with ours, and that alignment is what keeps the relationship strong,” says Sartorello.
As AI accelerates both attack and defence, the partnership matters more than ever. Rather than resist AI, Sartorello uses it to do the heavy lifting, and he expects his security partner to do the same. “The speed of change is overwhelming. You cannot outrun AI-driven attacks on your own. You need a partner whose AI moves as fast as the threats, and that is the partnership we have built,” Sartorello notes.
ABOUT TRENDAI™
TrendAI™, the global AI security leader and enterprise business unit of Trend Micro, empowers organisations with full AI visibility and consolidated security that inspires confidence, drives innovation, and eliminates risk. Trusted by the largest enterprises and governments across 185 countries, TrendAI™ secures the entire organisation, from identities to infrastructure to data.
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