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Flanders Investment & Trade strengthens its cloud security strategy with SecWise

Flanders Investment & Trade - Cybersecurity Hero
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Secured global workforce, cloud services and data via modern Zero Trust technologies

Flander Investment & Trade strengthens its cloud security strategy with SecWise

In 2015, Flanders Investment & Trade launched an IT strategy to systematically switch to the cloud. With headquarters in Brussels, five offices in Flanders, and 70 offices with over 250 employees abroad, this was quite a task.

With employees working across Belgium and around the world, traditional perimeter-based security was no longer sufficient. The organisation needed a modern security approach that could protect users, devices, identities and cloud applications regardless of where employees were located.

Following a series of security assessments and technology evaluations by SecWise, FIT selected the Microsoft 365 Defender suite to strengthen its security posture and support its cloud-first strategy.

"Cybersecurity had to evolve alongside our cloud journey. We wanted a solution that would provide visibility, stronger protection and a solid foundation for the future. FIT opted for the Microsoft 365 Defender suite because this solution lends itself very well to our cloud-only approach."

Kurt Spitaels, IT Team Manager of Flanders Investment & Trade

The Challenges of a Global Workforce

A globally distributed workforce brings tremendous flexibility, but also introduces new security challenges.

FIT needed to:

  • Protect users working from anywhere
  • Secure cloud applications and data
  • Reduce risks associated with compromised accounts
  • Gain a centralised view of security events
  • Improve cyber resilience without increasing operational complexity
At the same time, the organisation wanted to maintain a manageable security architecture for its internal IT team.

A Strategic Security Roadmap

SecWise began with a comprehensive security assessment, including cloud security reviews and penetration testing. Based on the findings, SecWise developed a structured roadmap focused on strengthening FIT’s security maturity while aligning with its cloud-first strategy.
This approach enabled FIT to gradually modernise its security landscape and implement controls that support both productivity and protection.
Strategic security roadmap, Global Workforce

Building Security around Identity, Devices and Data

Working closely together, FIT implemented a security model centred on three key pillars:
Advanced Threat Detection
In the first phase, FIT secured all its Microsoft Office 365 applications and activated Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection, which blocks any spam and malware emails, among other things.
By leveraging Microsoft’s security ecosystem, FIT can identify suspicious behaviour, investigate incidents faster and respond proactively to potential threats before they become business-impacting incidents.
Identity Protection
Strong identity controls were introduced using Zero Trust principles and multi-factor authentication. This helps ensure that users can securely access business resources while reducing the risk of compromised accounts.
“We don’t trust anyone and there’s an extra condition for gaining access: the user needs to use an authenticator app with multi-factor authentication to sign in. So if there’s a login from Brussels, for example, and then another one from Mogadishu two hours later, we receive an ‘impossible activity’ alert. All these alerts are monitored and investigated systematically: checking false notifications, resetting passwords, blocking connections, and so on.”
Device Security
A modern device management framework gives FIT central visibility and control over corporate devices used across the world. Security policies can be applied consistently, helping ensure compliance and reducing operational risks. FIT started using Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Intune) software for its device management

We manage and configure all our employees’ computers and phones. All PC's are staged in Brussels, but smartphones are purchased worldwide. Defining the policies with Endpoint Manager means we can ensure that someone can for example only use Microsoft Outlook for email and not ant other app on the device. Now we can clear all the data from a device remotely, if necessary, in the event it is lost or stolen.

Kurt Spitaels, IT Team Manager of Flanders Investment & Trade
Azure Cloud Security
In a final phase, the organization activated a new Azure Security design to protect the public cloud environment

Companies often limit themselves to a lift-and-shift approach when moving their applications to Azure, but you also need to modify the security. We find doors that aren’t properly locked during almost every assessment we carry out

Koen Jacobs, Managing Partner at SecWise

Better Visibility, Stronger Resilience

Banner better_visibility stronger resilience
One of the biggest benefits of the programme was the creation of a unified view across the security landscape. This was achieved by optimizing the full Microsoft Defender Suite.
  • 400 employees now work securely in the cloud
  • In 5 months for all devices and cloud servers to be protected by the new security solution
  • Successfully transitioned to a fully cloud-based operating model
  • Gained a single, unified security view of its entire digital estate
Instead of managing multiple disconnected security tools, FIT now benefits from improved visibility into potential threats, security events and compliance status.

This allows the organisation to:

  • Detect threats earlier
  • Investigate incidents faster
  • Reduce operational complexity
  • Strengthen overall cyber resilience
  • Support secure global collaboration

Security as an Ongoing Journey

Cybersecurity is not a one-time project. As threats continue to evolve, organisations must continuously adapt and improve.

Today, SecWise continues to support FIT as a trusted cybersecurity partner, helping the organisation maintain a mature security posture and proactively address emerging risks.

The result is a security strategy that enables innovation and international collaboration while keeping people, data and systems protected.

The robust integration of Microsoft Defender with other Microsoft applications offers a number of significant security benefits. If your security is fragmented, without a good flow of intelligence, you have a much less integrated overview and a false sense of security.

Kurt Spitaels, IT Team Manager of Flanders Investment & Trade

Your Organisation Deserves the Same Level of Control

At SecWise, we don’t just implement security. We own, operate and continuously improve it, as if it were our own environment. SecWise is a team of cloud security experts, dedicated to help our customers with cyber security and compliance in their digital transformation to a cloud and mobile work environment.
Due to the increasing use of cloud infrastructure and mobile applications, the perimeter to protect is getting bigger. Our mission is to ensure that security does not stand in the way of increasing productivity and the accompanying digital transformation, on the contrary, that it can facilitate this transition in a secure way

Would you like to know how managed security services can help your organisation stay secure, resilient and in control? Get in touch. We’d be happy to explore this together.