Lexmark Protects Its Cloud-Based Data and Offerings with Behavioral AI

Lexmark is a private company providing cloud-enabled imaging and IoT equipment and services for enterprise customers in 170 countries. Due to the nature of their business, data security is central to Lexmark’s value proposition.

“Our products go into environments that you could call critical infrastructure: pharmacies, healthcare, financial, and government, as well as retail,” said Bryan Willett, CISO at Lexmark. “We are committed to protecting that data for our customers.”

In order to receive the most value from the company’s Microsoft 365 E5 license, Willett used as many native email security tools as possible. The strategy worked until a wave of advanced phishing-as-a-service attacks bypassed those defenses to reach employee and VIP inboxes.

“We were having to reset accounts and reimage workstations for 50-60 users a month because of business email compromise attacks or malicious files that were downloaded from email,” Willett said. Because of the disruption and the time required for remediation, Willett started looking for an additional layer of email security that could block advanced attacks and complement M365.

“It’s human nature to respond to messages quickly, and attackers use that to get into your mind. Having Abnormal’s behavioral AI looking for those events is critically important to protect our users and customers.”
—Bryan S. Willett, CISO

Willett knew he wanted an API-based solution that would deploy easily and support quick integration. “I was looking for a tool that would be easy for us to evaluate without spending a lot of engineering time working on it because we had so many other things that our team needed to address,” he said.

Abnormal delivered the evaluation experience Willett was looking for, because it’s designed to work seamlessly with Microsoft 365. “The POV was one of the easiest that we've engaged in. It was a five minute call to get Abnormal connected to our subscription in Microsoft,” Willett said. Within two weeks, Abnormal completed its initial analysis of Lexmark’s email traffic.

When Lexmark installed Abnormal, Willett saw a near-immediate halt to advanced phishing attacks and account takeovers. AI Security Mailbox took over many of the SOC tasks related to investigation, remediation, and reporting, giving analysts time back to work on additional security projects, like delving deeply into specific threats. “I really like the fact that Abnormal can go in, analyze an email, and pull things out of inboxes after the fact,” Willett said.

In addition, Email Productivity saves Lexmark an average of more than 1,000 hours a month, with just over half the company using it so far. “It took my mailbox from being filled with hundreds of graymail messages a day to just email that is actionable. The executive administrative assistants are in love with Email Productivity,” he added.

“Abnormal’s behavioral AI makes us much more efficient in detecting malicious emails, so our users don’t have to worry about their inbox. And Email Productivity saves our people time sorting through graymail. Abnormal lets our people focus on business tasks rather than their email.”
—Bryan S. Willett, CISO

Willett says Abnormal stands out for the value it delivers. “In this generation, where everything is supposed to be easy, Abnormal sets the bar for security tools in terms of its time to value.”

Abnormal also provides a high level of support to help Lexmark focus on its business goals. “From day one when we connected the API to our Microsoft subscription, the Abnormal team has been great to work with,” Willett said.