How Jerusalem Municipality Strengthens Security and Gains Visibility

TL;DR

The Jerusalem Municipality – Israel’s largest municipal organization, serving nearly 1 million residents – had no dedicated security team, no defined policies, and a decades-old network with no unified view of risk. XM Cyber mapped the environment, revealed Active Directory gaps and configuration issues on first deployment, and gave the team a structured remediation program with measurable security score improvements after each fix.

The Challenge

When Yonatan Grunwald joined the Jerusalem Municipality as an information security expert, his first priority was clear. He needed to build a security program for an environment that had expanded dramatically over decades. “There was no dedicated security team or defined policies,” Grunwald explained.

“The network had grown layer by layer. We needed a way to map it and understand where we were exposed.”

Yonatan Grunwald, Information Security Expert, Jerusalem Municipality

The immediate and most significant challenge was visibility. The municipality’s network was not a clean, modern architecture; it was an intricate, decades-old web of legacy systems, modern cloud integrations, and countless internal connections. Grunwald’s team lacked the continuous, unified view necessary to identify the critical risk choke points and lateral movement paths an attacker might exploit. They needed a clearer, real-time map of the environment to pinpoint active risks and create a structured, data-driven plan to protect their vital citizen services and infrastructure. Traditional manual testing and siloed vulnerability scans simply could not keep pace with the network’s complexity and constant changes.

The Solution

When the team evaluated solutions, XM Cyber stood out for its ability to deliver value quickly;

“The ease of implementation and speed to results were critical. In the first deployment, we identified gaps that allowed us to act right away.”

Yonatan Grunwald, Information Security Expert, Jerusalem Municipality

The platform became the foundation for a structured, long-term plan. “We started with urgent fixes,” he explained. “Then we created a program of two- to three-week missions that steadily improved our security posture.” XM Cyber also provides the reporting and dashboards the team needs to communicate progress. “We can show management what we are doing, where we are improving, and how their support is driving results,” Grunwald noted.

Benefits & Outcomes

The XM Cyber implementation has delivered clear value from the outset, including:

• Immediate wins: Early scans revealed configuration issues, including Active Directory gaps, that the team was able to resolve quickly.
• Verifiable improvements: “After each change, XM Cyber shows us the impact. We have seen our security scores rise in measurable ways.”
• Enhanced communication with leadership: “The ability to share progress in simple, visual terms helps us build confidence and secure the resources we need.”
  

XM Cyber’s Customer Success team also played a significant role:

“We are a small team. Their regular check-ins keep us focused and help us move forward.”

Yonatan Grunwald, Information Security Expert, Jerusalem Municipality

Key Takeaways

• XM Cyber identified configuration issues and Active Directory gaps on first deployment, giving the team immediate fixes before building a longer-term plan.
• The team structured remediation into two- to three-week mission cycles, with measurable security score improvements after each round.
• Dashboards and reporting gave the security team a way to show management where they were improving and how support was driving results.
• Grunwald now recommends XM Cyber to peers: “It is an easy product to recommend because it speaks the truth about the environment.”