Case Study: Europe Water Management Facility achieves rapid incident containment and prevents service disruption with IBM Security QRadar EDR

Using IBM Security QRadar EDR to track a highly sophisticated supply chain attack against a water management facility

Europe Water Management Facility, a critical infrastructure operator serving about one million people, was targeted by a sophisticated supply‑chain attack that exploited a third‑party VPN/mail provider and used fileless, in‑memory malware, credential harvesting and lateral movement before attempting a ransomware deployment. The facility lacked endpoint monitoring, ransomware protection and hunting capabilities and had limited endpoint security resources, so it engaged IBM and deployed IBM Security QRadar EDR to close those visibility and response gaps.

IBM implemented IBM Security QRadar EDR across servers, desktops and laptops, leveraging NanoOS, dual AI engines, behavioral analytics, native lateral‑movement tracking and anti‑ransomware protection to continuously monitor, hunt and reconstruct the attack. QRadar EDR detected anomalous activity, allowed covert tracking of the attackers, automated remediation and pushed IOC/behavioral policies; the infected segment was cleaned in seconds and the incident was closed within two days with no data loss, no interruption to essential services and prevention of data exfiltration (the compromise involved a dozen devices before ransomware and several thousand after).