The digital world’s toughest door: The Defenders’ Club.
Collective cyber resilience: a new standard for pentests.
Highlights
- A collaborative security approach that leverages synergies to sustainably enhance the collective cyber resilience of our services
- Pooling platform knowledge, practical expertise, and the attacker’s perspective creates a new level of detail and effectiveness of pentesting
- Exclusive network on equal terms for direct knowledge transfer
- Two flexible club models offering tailored support for every need
- Strengthening the security of our service offerings – initially for VICOS, and prospectively for all other services
Fact Sheet
| Auszug Kund:innen | GASCADE Gastransport GmbH Open Grid Europe GmbH Allgäuer Überlandwerk GmbH |
| Sector | Energy |
| Purpose | Safe, reliable and efficient supply of energy |
Missions accomplished
- Services
Smart technology
- VIRTIMO CLOUD
When the pentest becomes an oracle.
Proactively verifying the security of deployed services is a critical factor for digital business success. Penetration tests are the established method of choice for this, yet their actual benefit in practice often falls short of expectations.
Faced with growing complexity and intense time pressure, one thing that is often neglected is collaborative preparation based on transparent architectural details. As a result, the analysis quickly resembles the proverbial glance into the crystal ball – especially in complex system landscapes where services are operated by external providers like us.
Spoiler alert: Not even the best oracles are that good. An approach like that does not only call its cost-effectiveness into question, but it also falls far short of the potential for a meaningful pentest that provides real value for sustainable security improvements.
We consolidate our platform knowledge, the client perspective and the pentesters’ attacker’s point of view. Ultimately, this strengthens not only the security of the individual but the community as a whole.
Thomas Kröckel
Head of Secure Services + IT | Virtimo AG
Welcome to the [Defenders’] Club!
The idea of pooling synergies through a strong community is standard practice for us. Our positive experiences with the Mako Club – where we regularly bring together leaders from the energy sector to jointly tackle the current challenges of market communication – have proven over the years just how valuable a collaborative approach is.
Applying this exact principle of success to IT security, we have created the Defenders’ Club. Our mission: To build the toughest door in the digital world and transform pentesting from a mere obligatory exercise into a constructive, effective tool. The focus is not just on formal compliance, but on uncovering real risks whose remediation creates genuine value for the sustainable security of all members.
It doesn’t feel at all like clients and service providers coming together. This high level of transparency and cooperative collaboration on a level field is typical for Virtimo – but overall very unusual.
Martin Höner
IT management | GASCADE Gastransport GmbH
One club, two entrances – with guest list status.
Members of the Defenders’ Club flexibly choose the model that suits them.
With the Access Pass, they can use our detailed scope templates, which are based on attack vectors we have mapped, and pass them on to a pentester of their choice. Optionally, we can connect them with a pentester familiar with our architectures and platforms, which massively reduces onboarding time.
With the Premium Pass, they select our full-service model: We take over the complete planning and coordination of the pentest from start to finish – an approach that has already proven effective in the targeted testing of the critical BSI-AS4 interface for Open Grid Europe GmbH.
Through cooperation with many different participants, we are now getting much more depth into our pentests. We can consider aspects that we would normally not be able to consider due to time constraints. Through the club, we can learn from each other and cover a much broader range, as well.
Mladen Terzic
Team lead IT operations | Open Grid Europe GmbH
Synergies for collective security.
The Defenders’ Club currently unlocks its value within the context of our shared-service platform VICOS, and will prospectively be made available for our other services as well.
Especially with VICOS as a 24/7 service, a decisive advantage emerges: Members can team up for more extensive pentests, thereby expanding existing synergies to include the aspect of collective security. This is an important concept because, as Dirk Breitkreuz puts it: “If the service doesn’t sleep, neither does the attacker.”
We meet this permanent challenge with a strong club concept that protects our services: The more service users contribute their knowledge and perspectives, the stronger our shared digital door becomes. One idea we are currently exploring for the future is opening the club for individual applications. Would you like to explore this idea further with us? Let’s talk!
Within the Defenders’ Club, we will also make the results of pentests available in the future. We are convinced that this will move the entire community forward.
Dirk Breitkreuz
Board Member | Virtimo AG
Let’s do it together!
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