Case Study: Flex achieves unified global cybersecurity and 7‑day secure access for 20,000 remote workers with Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access and Cortex XSOAR

Unified cybersecurity across global operations

Flex, a global manufacturing‑services leader, needed to modernize and unify cybersecurity across its worldwide operations to protect both its own and customers’ IP while extending consistent, next‑generation security policies to remote workers. The challenge became urgent during COVID‑19 when 20,000 employees had to work from home: Flex required Zero Trust microsegmentation, malware prevention, and scalable, low‑friction remote access that would not disrupt critical procurement, logistics, or fiscal‑year close activities.

Working with Palo Alto Networks and partner Armature Systems, Flex deployed Prisma Access SASE and Cortex XSOAR to apply centralized next‑generation firewall inspection, URL filtering, threat prevention and microsegmentation to every endpoint. The team stood up Prisma Access for 20,000 users in seven days with zero downtime, preventing lateral malware spread, enabling continued manufacturing (including ventilator programs), and using Cortex XSOAR to automate threat correlation and speed incident response, reducing tickets and freeing security resources.

Flex

Friedrich (Fritz) Wetschnig

Chief Information Security Officer and Vice President of Enterprise IT