Industry
Materials, machinery, electric power
Employees
38,050
Region
Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan
Solutions
THE CHALLENGE
Protecting supply chains, operations and data
Founded in 1905, Kobe Steel Co., Ltd. (KOBELCO) operates a wide range of businesses, including those focused on materials (steel and aluminum, advanced materials, and welding), machinery (machinery, engineering, and construction machinery), and electric power. As a unified brand of the Kobe Steel Group, KOBELCO is composed of over 200 group companies.
To help further strengthen supply chain security, KOBELCO has been integrating security tools across their group companies over more than 15 years. Their strategy includes protection and response measures that leverage the powerful capabilities and solutions within TrendAI Vision One™. This longtime dedication to proactive defence earned KOBELCO the 2024 TrendAI™ Global Customer Award for Cybersecurity Leader.
“We are pleased KOBELCO received the TrendAI™ Global Customer Award,” says Nobumitsu Namba, Director of the IT Planning Department at KOBELCO. “To control cyber risks within the organisation, it is necessary to consider both ‘protection activities’ to prevent cyberattacks in advance and ‘response activities’ to quickly address issues if they arise. The TrendAI™ strategy of integrating these two points into a single platform aligns with the direction of Kobe Steel’s cybersecurity measures.”
KOBELCO proactively secures over 200 in-group businesses with TrendAI Vision One™
For KOBELCO and the businesses they operate, IT and the cybersecurity efforts supporting them are indispensable. “As a fundamental measure to improve cybersecurity across KOBELCO, we have been integrating security tools since around 2010,” says Namba. “This integration refers to unifying the products of different vendors used by group companies across the entire company. While integration is not the goal, we decided to integrate security tools to prevent cyberattack damage from occurring within group companies to prevent the spread of damage to other group companies in the event of an incident.”
In recent years, KOBELCO has strived to reduce number of security solutions used. “In the current environment where cyber risks lead to business risks, cybersecurity efforts are essential to support the utilisation of IT,” says Namba.
“While there is the concept of ‘best of breed’ using products from various vendors, this complicates operation makes appropriate cyber risk control difficult.”
“The TrendAI™ strategy of integrating protection and response into a single platform aligns with the direction of Kobe Steel’s cybersecurity measures.”
Nobumitsu Namba
Director of IT Planning Department, Kobe Steel Co., Ltd. (KOBELCO)
THE SOLUTION
Expanded visibility, unified proactive security
“The main reason for adopting TrendAI™ solutions is that their strategy of integrating ‘protection’ and ‘response’ into a single platform aligns with the direction of KOBELCO’s cybersecurity measures,” Namba adds. “By integrating cybersecurity into a single platform and monitoring the logs of the entire organisation and understanding various security-related events, we can quickly detect and respond to threats that are difficult to notice individually, thereby strengthening the organisation’s cybersecurity. We look forward to continuing to work with TrendAI™ to promote cybersecurity measures that support our business.”
KOBELCO’s cybersecurity efforts are designed for rapid prevention and response. “These efforts include the introduction of cybersecurity products, employee training, and 24/7 security operations centre (SOC) monitoring, implemented with a meticulous system,” says Namba.
Through TrendAI Vision One™, KOBELCO leverages powerful proactive solutions and capabilities, driven by AI and worldleading threat intelligence. These enable them to expand risk visibility, protect important endpoints, and strengthen their cloud security. Empowered by one industry-leading AI security platform, their teams are staying ahead of adversaries and AI-powered threats, particularly important as KOBELCO implements new technologies and processes.
“By utilising IT tools, we have reduced working hours by 250,000 per hour annually [2023 results], developed new materials using the data analysis platform DataLab, promoted manufacturing innovation and safety improvement using advanced technologies such as IoT and robotics, and contributed to CO2 reduction with low- CO2 blast furnace steel using AI Furnace® technology,” says Namba. “By combining the diverse assets of our group with digital technology and data, we provide new value to our customers.”
RESULTS
Faster response, ready to secure AI
“We have been using TrendAI™ solutions at various points including for endpoints, email, network, and cloud, and we consider them sensors that provide a comprehensive view of KOBELCO’s overall cybersecurity,” notes Namba. “By utilising these solutions and collaborating with TrendAI™ for 24/7 SOC monitoring, we believe we are contributing to KOBELCO’s top priority of ‘zero major incidents.’”
Looking to the future, KOBELCO recognizes the importance of not only understanding and thoughtfully implementing AI, but also securing integrations against cyber risk. “Cybersecurity has been significantly changing with the advent of AI,” says Namba. “While we understand that using AI involves threats including compliance issues and AI misidentification, we believe that not using AI while cyber attackers are is a risk. We intend to utilise AI in the future for log monitoring, internal control, and other areas in cybersecurity.”
Solutions and future innovations from TrendAI™ are poised to help KOBELCO continue to protect their operations and employee data.
“We expect TrendAI™ to continue leading in global cybersecurity,” Namba adds. “Additionally, we look forward to working together on new threats that are currently a concern, such as the misuse of deepfake cyberattacks on systems that constitute AI, and to promoting cybersecurity measures that support our business.”
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. Learn more at trendaisecurity.com
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