Chuck E. Cheese’s Entertainment, Inc.

Founded in 1977 and headquartered in Irving, Texas, CEC Entertainment Inc. and its franchisees operate a system of more than 600 Chuck E. Cheese’s and 145 Peter Piper Pizza stores located in 47 states and 10 foreign countries or territories. CEC establishments serve a variety of menu items and features arcade games, amusement rides, and animatronic displays designed to create positive, lifelong memories for families.

CEC’s IT support center is located in Coppell, Texas. In addition to almost 500 support staff, a team of 12 security analysts and engineers work to protect the company’s data and systems from increasingly advanced cyberattacks.

For Edwin Martinez, Former Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at CEC, ensuring that sensitive customer data is always protected is his team’s top priority. In addition to credit card information, the company also stores personal information that it must secure and monitor. “To protect this information and ensure PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance, we need to understand what our risk is, how to mitigate that risk, and find partners to help us achieve those goals so that our customers continue to trust us with their information,” said Martinez.

To understand their risk level and stop attacks before they reach users, CEC needed greater visibility into their environment. “We had two key security challenges: a lack of visibility into our environment, which made it difficult to assess risk and solve issues, and the risks associated with patching point-of-sales (POS) systems in hundreds of locations,” said Martinez.

The largest concern for Martinez is keeping up with the rapid changes in the threat landscape. “The speed, quantity, and sophistication of attacks are increasing all the time, making it difficult to prepare for the next wave of new threats,” said Martinez.

Anticipating changes in the business landscape, CEC needed to upgrade to an enterprise solution and was considering nine different security vendors. While SHI, a global IT solutions provider, was working on CEC’s security evaluation, Trend Micro was invited to present its solutions. “I wasn’t just looking for a product or solution, but a long-term partnership—and Trend Micro really gave me a sense that partnership was equally important to them,” said Martinez.

Several factors contributed to CEC’s selection of Trend Micro, including its strength in data center and endpoint security, connected threat defense and strong position in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for endpoint protection platforms. However, it was the proof of concept (POC) that set Trend Micro apart from competitors. “I’ve been in security for more than 20 years, and I never experienced a POC as effective. We started with a 90- day POC, and by day 40 we made the decision to go with Trend Micro,” said Martinez.

CEC uses Trend Micro™ Smart Protection Complete to provide connected threat defense across protection layers with flexible cloud deployment, simplified licensing, and central management for network-wide visibility and control of threats and data. “With the suite’s Trend Micro™ Cloud App Security, we eliminated gaps in our Office 365® email protection, so we can respond very quickly to potential threats and keep our users protected,” said Martinez.

Martinez and his team are also using Trend Micro™ Deep Security™ solution to protect the company’s 1,600 servers. “Deep Security’s anti-malware and web reputation capabilities allowed us to maintain the necessary uptime, and provided a better understanding of our environment,” said Martinez.

With Trend Micro™ Control Manager™ centralized visibility and management solution, the CEC security team can view the entire threat environment from a single pane of glass. “Control Manager gives CISOs the information they need to understand their security posture and make better decisions,” said Martinez.

"With Trend Micro, we can automatically identify threats, eliminate them, and provide detailed reports that I can present to leadership."

Edwin Martinez,
Former Chief Information Security Officer
(CISO), CEC Entertainment Inc.

After deploying Trend Micro solutions, CEC recognized several significant benefits. By providing visibility across its IT landscape, Martinez and his team can immediately identify and manage their security risks. The solution also enables them to discover potential threats on servers, desktops, mobile devices, email, and the company’s POS devices. “With Trend Micro, we can automatically identify threats, eliminate them, and provide detailed reports that I can present to leadership,” said Martinez.

In addition to improving CEC’s overall security posture, simplifying management, and creating a strong foundation for the next wave of evolving threats, Trend Micro solutions contribute to cost reductions for the company’s cyber insurance. “After demonstrating the Trend Micro tools we were using to improve security, we received a 26 percent reduction in our insurance premium, and they also increased our benefits,” said Martinez.

Martinez is also impressed with the professionalism of the Trend Micro sales and support teams. “Trend Micro support has been exceptional. They are very knowledgeable, responsive, and they continue to exceed expectations,” said Martinez.

To help maintain continuous security, CEC plans to add Trend Micro’s virtual patching capability. “With virtual patching, we can prevent exploitation of a potential vulnerability while ensuring all patches are tested and working properly,” said Martinez.