“The main benefits of implementing Firewall modules were the creation of custom WAF rules that cover everything from our website to all our APIs and the mitigation of any type of DDoS attack without performance impacts.”
Diego Romano, Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) at Pernambucanas
Challenge
Pernambucanas is a Brazilian retailer composed of hundreds of stores that sell Casual Fashion, Bed & Bath, and Appliances, among other categories. After starting an ambitious digital transformation journey, Pernambucanas needed to further strengthen its cybersecurity posture.
There are several cyber threats targeting e-commerce platforms that can dramatically impact a company’s reputation, potentially causing service outages, credit card fraud, loss of sales, and theft of customers’ sensitive data.
In this context, improving Pernambucanas’s security became both a goal and an ongoing challenge that requires modern technologies capable of addressing increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.
Solution
Pernambucanas relies on Azion Platform capabilities both for threat mitigation and for streaming security event data to its analytics environment through automated, real-time features. Protection across network and application layers (L3 to L7) ensures the company’s e-commerce platform benefits from a defense-in-depth approach against a wide range of cyber threats, such as:
- SQL injections
- bot attacks
- cross-site scripting
- remote file inclusion
- unauthorized access
- directory traversal
To build a strong defensive posture, Pernambucanas implemented Firewall, together with Network Shield, DDoS Protection, and advanced security capabilities that allow its cybersecurity experts to:
- create centralized control points to block malicious domains and communications using Network Lists;
- implement customized Firewall rules protecting both websites and APIs, including bypass functionality for trusted IP addresses; and
- automatically mitigate large and complex DDoS attacks without impacting performance, availability, or reliability.
Additionally, Pernambucanas enhanced bot management practices by integrating Radware Bot Manager through Functions on the Azion Platform, leveraging programmable security capabilities. Radware Bot Manager uses multiple classification techniques, including machine learning, to detect and mitigate sophisticated bad bots, including human-like bots.
To strengthen its cybersecurity intelligence, Pernambucanas also adopted Data Stream, which provides its security team with real-time insights and event data from its Applications. All information is collected continuously and automatically transmitted to its infrastructure through Connectors.
Results and impacts
In the first six months using Firewall, Pernambucanas automatically blocked 374K cyber threats, enabling its security experts to focus on other critical initiatives and further strengthen their zero-trust security strategy.
By using Radware Bot Manager, the Pernambucanas team gained automated monitoring, detection, and mitigation of malicious bots through an intelligent decision engine. All events can be monitored in real time using APIs or an out-of-path mode.
Improving its cybersecurity observability, Data Stream processed approximately 1.4 billion requests and transferred about 1.6 TB of data in a single month. These detailed application and security events are analyzed through integration with Pernambucanas’s existing analytics stack, enabling more informed decision-making.
To maximize the value of Firewall and its capabilities, Pernambucanas relied on Azion Mission-Critical Support, which helped its team design effective firewall rules, conduct onboarding and training sessions, and implement best practices.
About Pernambucanas
Established in 1908, Pernambucanas Group offers a wide range of products, including fashion, bed & bath, appliances, and electronics, to customers across Brazil. For more than 110 years, the company has continued evolving through digital transformation.
In 2020, Pernambucanas’s e-commerce platform grew 1,081%, advancing its Fígital strategy — the integration of digital and physical experiences.
Today, beyond its more than 410 stores in Brazil, Pernambucanas operates web and mobile e-commerce platforms and its fintech arm Pefisa, which offers financial services such as digital accounts, PIX transfers, digital wallets, credit cards, loans, and insurance.
