When it comes to cybersecurity, speed and accuracy are everything — especially in the financial sector, where targeted and industry-specific attacks are on the rise. For Northwestern Mutual, a leader in financial services, the challenge was clear: streamline their threat investigation process, minimize false positives, and ensure their incident response and threat intelligence teams could work smarter, not harder.

In our latest customer story, we explore how Northwestern Mutual achieved this transformation with VMRay, reducing their threat investigation time from 24 hours to just minutes.

The Challenge: Speed, Accuracy, and Data Privacy

Northwestern Mutual’s cybersecurity teams faced a number of pressing challenges:

• Inefficient Investigation Workflows: Relying on traditional sandbox tools and their EDR solution, they struggled with time-consuming manual investigations and inconsistent results.
• Evasive Threats: Advanced malware and phishing attacks — often multi-stage and highly targeted — made it difficult to track full execution chains.
• Data Privacy Concerns: Operating in the US financial sector meant strict regulatory requirements, demanding absolute confidence in how and where their data was handled.

According to Chris, Northwestern Mutual’s CTI Lead:

“We had skilled analysts who could tell when the platform was missing something. Our focus was on accuracy and speed—we needed a solution that could deliver both.”

They needed a solution that not only accelerated their investigation process but also provided the depth of analysis and privacy assurance they required.

The Solution: Leveraging VMRay for Incident Response, Threat Hunting, and Intelligence

Northwestern Mutual selected VMRay after a rigorous evaluation of threat analysis platforms — including free tools, commercial solutions, and EDR-bundled sandboxes. VMRay stood out for its:

• Hypervisor-Based Sandboxing: Offering complete evasion resistance to capture even the most sophisticated malware behaviors.
• Depth of Analysis: Tracing threats through every step of multi-stage attacks
• Real-Time Threat Intelligence: Seamlessly integrating with ThreatConnect to pull IOCs and context into their workflows.
• Automation Capabilities: Building integrations to auto-populate threat analysis results and eliminate manual submissions.

Chris highlights the value of this automation shift:

“VMRay’s reliability has given us the confidence to take the next step—automating our submission process and having results seamlessly integrated into ServiceNow.”

The Impact: Faster Investigations, Smarter Defense

The results speak for themselves:

• Investigation Time Slashed: Reduced from 24 hours to just minutes — most investigations now complete in under an hour.
• Accurate, Noise-Free IOCs: VMRay’s clear, pre-filtered IOCs minimize false positives, boosting analyst confidence.
• Proactive Threat Hunting: Real-time data pulled from ThreatConnect allows their team to identify and act on threats faster.
• Enhanced Collaboration: Automation through ServiceNow streamlines internal workflows, giving analysts more time to focus on high-impact investigations.
• Data Privacy Assured: VMRay’s secure cloud deployment and commitment to not sharing customer data align with Northwestern Mutual’s regulatory requirements.

Chris sums it up perfectly:

“VMRay often identifies threats before they’re linked to known threat groups, giving us a critical head start.”

Looking Ahead: Building Stronger Threat Intelligence

With their VMRay integration expanding Northwestern Mutual continues to strengthen its proactive defense posture. Their story is a testament to how a best-of-breed solution can empower threat intelligence and incident response teams to work with speed, accuracy, and confidence.

For the full story on how Northwestern Mutual transformed its threat investigation process, read the complete case study here.