TL;DR

An Italian public sector IT consortium managing national digital infrastructure for a network of economic and commercial bodies lacked visibility into attack paths and could not prioritize remediation. XM Cyber gave the security team its first clear quantification of IT risk, exposed misconfiguration chains that existing tools missed, and established data-driven priorities that shrank the attack surface.

The Challenge

Securing a large Italian Public Sector organization is a challenging task. The primary obstacles were rooted in a fundamental lack of clarity regarding the true threat landscape and how to effectively allocate limited resources. As Matteo C., the Head of Security Operations, stated, “Our main challenges were visibility gaps in attack paths and difficulty prioritizing weaknesses amid resource constraints.”

“Our main challenges were visibility gaps in attack paths and difficulty prioritizing weaknesses amid resource constraints.”

Head of Security Operations

These critical gaps meant the security team struggled to identify and understand the most dangerous routes an attacker could take, making it nearly impossible to determine which exposures genuinely mattered. The traditional approach was no longer sustainable; the team urgently required a solution that could provide continuous risk assessment and establish clear, data-driven priorities to efficiently and effectively shrink the attack surface. They needed to move beyond simply identifying vulnerabilities and towards understanding and mitigating actual cyber risk.

The Solution

Recognizing the urgency of their visibility gaps, the organization initially explored several traditional vulnerability management and security assessment tools before ultimately selecting XM Cyber. “The light bulb moment came when we realized that we could shift our approach from reactive to proactive security posture management,” Matteo explained. They did a POC with XM Cyber and found that it complemented the organization’s existing vulnerability scanners by exposing risks that others missed. “This is made possible by identifying any vulnerabilities related to misconfiguration and how these, chained together, can lead to a potential compromise,” he said.

Deployment was simple and delivered immediate results.

“Our initial deployment focused on on-premises assets, servers and workstations, and was quite straightforward. The dedicated customer success manager provided invaluable guidance, quickly helping us define scenarios based on other customer experience."

Head of Security Operations

He continued; "I was particularly surprised by the immediate and ongoing identification of weaknesses and misconfigurations that violate security and company best practices.”

Benefits & Outcomes

In their words, XM Cyber gave the organization measurable advantages:

Collaboration support: “Breaking down silos between teams is challenging, primarily due to human behavior and the need for mutual trust. XM Cyber gives us a shared view to work from, which makes addressing these challenges easier.”

Risk quantification: “The main advantage we are gaining is a clear and initial quantification of IT risk, its trends over time, and which assets are critical to monitor.”

Faster findings: “I was particularly surprised by the immediate and ongoing identification of weaknesses and misconfigurations.”

Key Takeaways

• XM Cyber delivered the organization’s first clear quantification of IT risk, identifying both trends over time and critical assets.
• The platform exposed misconfiguration chains that traditional vulnerability scanners missed entirely.
• XM Cyber was easily deployed on-premises servers and workstations and immediately identified weaknesses and policy violations.
• XM Cyber provided a shared view across teams, helping break down silos between security and IT operations.