The Challenge:

Zero Downtime in a Complex Global Environment

Vinci Construction manages high-stakes infrastructure projects worldwide, including work on the Paris Metro, major highways, and airports. Operating in over 68 countries, any interruption to a project results in a significant financial and operational impact.
For CISO Christophe Denis and his team, the core challenge was balancing the need to assess and reduce cybersecurity risk with the absolute necessity of maintaining zero system downtime for their critical global projects. Traditional security tools were ineffective, either lacking real-time visibility into their vast IT environment or proving too intrusive and unable to deliver actionable insights.

Denis emphasized this uptime imperative, stating, “We needed a way to continuously monitor our environment without any risk to ongoing projects… Downtime is not acceptable in our line of work, so our security solution had to be completely non-intrusive.” Finally, the team also needed a way to provide clear, measurable evidence of risk reduction to align security progress with business goals and secure necessary budget and leadership support.

The Solution: 

Non-Intrusive, Comprehensive Exposure Management

Vinci Construction chose XM Cyber for its ability to deliver continuous exposure management through a virtualized architecture. This approach ensures that security assessments occur safely, without ever interacting directly with production machines or interrupting critical workflows. “I recommend XM Cyber because there’s absolutely no interaction with the machines. Everything is virtualized, so we can operate securely without any issues,” says Christophe Denis.

The XM Cyber platform provided Vinci with a clear, prioritized view of security risks and delivered targeted remediation guidance. This capability quickly exposed critical, previously undetected issues, such as plaintext passwords and identical admin accounts across multiple servers. This precise insight enabled an efficient, coordinated workflow: Active Directory issues were automatically routed to system admins, while workstation problems went to the support and security teams. Importantly, each team received specific, actionable remediation steps and utilized the XM Cyber console to confirm resolution, successfully improving coordination and reducing overall risk without disrupting Vinci’s critical global operations.

Benefits & Outcomes:

Dramatic Risk Reduction and Executive Buy-In

Vinci Construction achieved rapid, measurable improvements after deploying XM Cyber, translating security progress into clear business value.

• Smarter Resource Allocation: The precise, data-driven insights informed strategic investment. “XM Cyber has allowed us to know exactly where to allocate budget and resources,” says Denis. “It’s made it much easier to identify where we need to strengthen our teams to tackle problems.”
• Executive Support: Based on the platform’s metrics and clear visuals, leadership approved budget increases and agreed to add new security headcount.
• Operational Efficiency: Vinci avoided downtime and improved efficiency by utilizing virtualized, non-disruptive assessments, aligning security goals with project uptime requirements.

Key Takeaways & Future Outlook

Vinci Construction strongly recommends XM Cyber to any organization that requires risk management without operational impact. The solution has become central to Vinci’s strategy:

• Clear Risk Visibility Without Operational Disruption
• Stronger Security Posture and Measurable Progress
• Efficient Remediation and Smarter Resource Allocation
  

“We now act on precise insights, avoid disruption, and show leadership where we are making progress,” Denis concludes. XM Cyber remains a key partner, helping Vinci maintain resilience, enable fast response to risk, and secure its complex global environments at scale