Merck KGaA Gains Competitive Advantage with Unified Threat Intelligence Across Global Operations

Operating across electronics, healthcare, and life sciences, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany faces sophisticated cyber threats targeting their complex global infrastructure. With ransomware posing escalating risks and intelligence scattered across disparate sources, the cybersecurity team struggled to prioritize responses effectively in an ever-changing threat landscape. They needed a unified platform that could consolidate intelligence, enable focus on critical vulnerabilities, and keep them ahead of evolving attacker tactics. Recorded Future delivered that competitive advantage.

Goal

Stay ahead of escalating ransomware threats and sophisticated attackers by consolidating disparate intelligence sources and effectively prioritizing responses across complex operations spanning electronics, healthcare, and life sciences.

Challenge

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany's cybersecurity team faced mounting pressure to protect complex operations spanning electronics, healthcare, and life sciences against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. Ransomware posed one of the most significant risks to their business continuity, while threat actors constantly evolved their tactics and techniques. The team struggled to synthesize intelligence from multiple disparate sources, making it difficult to prioritize which threats and vulnerabilities demanded immediate attention. This fragmentation made it challenging for the team to focus on the most important things across an ever-changing threat landscape.

Outcome

Recorded Future enabled Siemens Energy to shift from reactive defense to a proactive security posture, giving the team the ability to anticipate and minimize threats before they impact operations. The security team now identifies and protects against both nation-state actors and opportunistic attackers targeting the energy sector, while automated vulnerability identification allows them to handle critical exposures before exploitation.

This transformation increased awareness and resiliency across the organization, providing new ways to understand the threat actors and TTPs targeting Siemens Energy and the broader energy industry—ultimately preventing attacks that could disrupt the critical infrastructure millions depend on.

Unifying Threat Intelligence Across Complex Global Operations

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany faced the challenge of protecting a vast, complex business spanning electronics, healthcare, and life sciences against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. With ransomware representing one of the most significant risks to their operations, the company's cybersecurity team struggled to synthesize intelligence from disparate sources and prioritize responses effectively. The evolving tactics, techniques, and procedures of threat actors made it critical for the company to understand not just what threats existed, but what attackers were specifically targeting.

Recorded Future transformed Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany’s cybersecurity operations by consolidating threat intelligence into a single, actionable platform. Christopher Wilke, Head of Cybersecurity Operations, emphasizes how this unified approach enables his team to focus energy on critical threats and vulnerabilities while saving valuable time. The platform's integration with SOAR systems provides seamless threat visualization across teams, while Vulnerability Intelligence helps prioritize patching efforts to reduce risk most effectively. Additionally, research from Recorded Future's Insikt Group fills intelligence gaps where Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany’s team lacks the bandwidth for independent investigation, creating what Wilke describes as "a very competitive advantage" that fundamentally changed their security posture.