Case Study: Xero achieves DevOps-speed automated workload security with CloudPassage Halo

Xero chooses CloudPassage Halo for workload security at DevOps speed

Xero, a cloud accounting provider with over 860,000 subscribers, moved its infrastructure to AWS to gain fast scalability and rapid deployment but faced a security challenge: how to protect short-lived EC2 instances and maintain visibility across 45+ AWS accounts without slowing its agile DevOps teams that released hundreds of features a year. They needed an automated, API-driven security solution that could be embedded in CI/CD pipelines, preserve audit trails, and meet compliance requirements.

Xero chose CloudPassage Halo for its fully automated, API-first platform that scales with AWS, integrates with CI/CD and Splunk, and provides host-level security controls and compliance monitoring. Halo was quickly adopted as the standard for EC2 instances, expanded beyond core systems, improved visibility and auditing, and let developers continue moving fast without introducing security bottlenecks.

Xero

Aaron McKeown

Lead Security Architect