How Vinci Construction Fortifies Global Security Posture and Dramatically Reduces Risk

TL;DR

Vinci Construction operates high-stakes infrastructure projects across 68+ countries, where any system interruption carries significant financial and operational consequences. With XM Cyber, the security team gets continuous exposure management through a fully virtualized architecture - full visibility into risk, prioritized remediation, and the data to secure executive buy-in for budget and headcount.

“XM Cyber has allowed us to know exactly where to allocate budget and resources. It’s made it much easier to identify where we need to strengthen our teams to tackle problems.”

Christophe Denis, CISO, Vinci Construction

The Challenge

Zero Downtime in a Complex Global Environment

Vinci Construction manages high-stakes infrastructure projects across 68+ countries and multiple time zones - from the Paris Metro to major highways and airports across the globe. An hour of downtime in one region can cascade into a full day lost on the other side of the world.

For CISO Christophe Denis and his team, security assessment and risk reduction had to coexist with an absolute requirement: zero downtime for critical global projects. Yet the tools they evaluated either lacked real-time visibility into the full IT environment, or they were too intrusive to run safely on systems that support active construction operations.

The team also needed a way to provide clear, measurable evidence of risk reduction - metrics that could tie security progress to business goals and help secure budget and leadership support.

The Solution

Non-Intrusive, Comprehensive Exposure Management

Vinci chose XM Cyber because its virtualized architecture offered something no other tool had: continuous visibility into security risk across a global environment, with zero impact to production. With XM Cyber, every assessment can run against a modelled copy of the environment – meaning no agents on production machines and no interaction with live systems.

The platform immediately surfaced critical exposures the team had no way to see before - plaintext passwords, identical admin accounts shared across multiple servers, and undetected misconfigurations. The platform also automated the remediation workflow. Active Directory issues were routed directly to system admins, workstation problems were routed to support and security teams, and each team received specific, actionable steps. The XM Cyber console gave every team a single place to confirm resolution and track progress across the entire global environment.

“XM Cyber remains a key partner, helping Vinci maintain resilience, enable fast response to risk, and secure its complex global environments at scale”

Christophe Denis, CISO, Vinci Construction

What’s more, XM Cyber offered the Vinci team a way to translate security findings into executive-level decisions. Risk-scored metrics and clear visual reporting turned security findings into a language leadership could act on. Within months, leadership approved budget increases and added new security headcount.

Benefits & Outcomes

Dramatic Risk Reduction and Executive Buy-In

Since deploying XM Cyber, Vinci has turned security progress into clear business value.

• Stronger security posture: Exposures that went undetected for years are now identified, prioritized, and resolved through a single console. With every team working from the same findings, issues get fixed faster and stay fixed. 
• Smarter resource allocation: The team now knows exactly where to put budget and resources. The platform replaced guesswork with precise, data-backed insight into which areas need the most attention. 
• Executive buy-in: Leadership can see security progress in terms that make sense to them. The platform's risk-scored metrics and visual reporting led directly to approved budget increases and new security headcount. 
• Zero operational disruption: All of this happened without a single hour of production downtime. Security assessments stay completely separate from the live systems that keep global projects running.

Key Takeaways

“I recommend XM Cyber because there’s absolutely no interaction with the machines. Everything is virtualized, so we can operate securely without any issues.”

Christophe Denis, CISO, Vinci Construction

• XM Cyber exposed critical issues like plaintext passwords, shared admin accounts, undetected misconfigurations - that traditional tools missed entirely. 
• Findings route automatically to the right teams, so fixes happen faster with less back-and-forth.
• Risk-scored, visual reporting helped the team secure budget increases and additional security headcount from executive leadership.
• Vinci recommends XM Cyber to any organization that needs to manage risk without operational impact.