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Abdi Ibrahim Secures Pharma Data with OPSWAT…
Manufacturing | Customer Stories
Abdi Ibrahim Secures Pharma Data with OPSWAT MetaDefender Kiosk™
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About Abdi Ibrahim: Founded in 1912 by Istanbul pharmacist Abdi İbrahim Bey, Abdi Ibrahim Pharmaceuticals has become Türkiye’s leading pharmaceutical company, boasting a portfolio of 250 brands and over 500 products. Operating in 17 countries with 5,500 employees, the company is home to AbdiBio, Türkiye’s largest accredited biotechnological manufacturing facility, specializing in hormone production, sterile ophthalmology, inhalation products, injectables, and oncology treatments.
What's the story? Until recently, Abdi Ibrahim relied on an air gap to protect its OT (operational technology) assets. This was insufficient against threats from peripheral media like USB drives and SD cards. With thousands of files—including pharmaceutical recipes, OT configurations, and software updates—transferred daily, the company needed a robust solution to sanitize files and prevent malware while maintaining efficient operations. By integrating OPSWAT’s cybersecurity technologies, Abdi Ibrahim enhanced its defenses, securing both OT assets and internal networks against potential threats.
Türkiye’s largest pharmaceutical company safeguards sensitive intellectual property and ensures compliance using OPSWAT technology to scan and sanitize 18,000+ files per day with no downtime, eliminating malware risks from peripheral media.
The pharmaceutical sector generated revenues in excess of US$1.6 trillion globally in 2023 according to Statista, with projected revenues anticipated to grow at an annual growth rate (CAGR 2024-2029) of 4.71%. This will result in a market volume of US$1,454.00 trillion by 2029.
With so many dollars flowing into this sector, it’s not surprising that pharmaceutical companies are among the enterprises most targeted by cybercriminals, opening the door to potentially devastating consequences.
The data breach at Cencora in 2024 was a prime example of the knock-on effect that can occur when one company is breached. In this case, 11 of Cencora’s partners, including Bayer Corporation, Novartis, and Regeneron, reported their own data breaches shortly after the attack. Cencora’s $75 million settlement, one of the largest recorded payouts ever in a ransomware case, underscores the extreme vulnerability of critical sectors like pharmaceuticals and healthcare to cybercriminal activities.
Abdi Ibrahim Pharma, the leading pharmaceutical company in Türkiye, is among the growing number of companies worldwide that are taking proactive steps to safeguard their networks against cyberattacks.
For us, protecting our sensitive data, like pharmaceutical recipes and production files, is critical. With OPSWAT’s MetaDefender Kiosk, we know every file entering our environment is sanitized and secure—it’s become an essential part of how we operate.
Emin Tatlisu
Operations Technology Infrastructure Manager,
Abdi Ibrahim Pharmaceuticals
Moving Beyond Air Gaps for True File Security
Until recently, Abdi Ibrahim relied solely on its network being air-gapped to protect its OT assets from outside intrusion. While this is a wise step to take to better safeguard production, air gapping alone does not protect against threats posed by malware being transferred from peripheral media such as USB flash drives, SD cards, phones, or transient devices used to bring in new data for use in research or to update manufacturing equipment.
As Emin Tatlisu, OT Infrastructure Manager for Abdi Ibrahim, described, “Before OPSWAT, we had certain concerns. In production, we generally have older devices. Even though they are older, these devices contain valuable production data that we must secure. This data was largely processed through manual workflows. We decided to invest in improving the infrastructure for these workflows, incorporating cybersecurity and data security enhancements.”
At Abdi Ibrahim, peripheral media is used to transfer up to 18,000 files each day containing protected intellectual property like pharmaceutical recipes, configuration files for OT machinery, image files, and software or firmware updates.
Faced with the growing threat from cybercriminals, security leaders at Abdi Ibrahim realized they needed a reliable solution to quickly and effectively sanitize the thousands of files found within peripheral media that were being brought into their manufacturing facilities every day. Protecting OT assets and their internal network from the potential spread of malware quickly became a primary focus.
“Initially, we faced challenges,” Mr. Tatlisu said, “primarily related to securing the valuable data we handled. OPSWAT helped us solve this issue by ensuring the secure transfer of our data.”
Finding the Right Network Security Solution
Given the size of its operation and the complexities of keeping sensitive data files secure, Abdi Ibrahim required a solution that would sanitize files stored in peripheral media brought into and out of its air-gapped, secure network. Doing so would ensure that sensitive pharmaceutical data such as recipes would be free from cyberthreats and safe to use in a production environment.
Being able to ensure total network security would also help Abdi Ibrahim comply with strict regulatory requirements for data integrity and security in the pharmaceutical industry.
Finally, security leaders needed to be sure that any solution chosen could be integrated seamlessly into their existing systems and operations with no downtime.
“[Previously], critical and valuable data at Abdi Ibrahim was being processed through manual workflows where operators were using unsecured USB devices to transfer data,” Mr. Tatlisu said. “Since we could not establish a security policy for this operation, it posed a risk. We believed OPSWAT could help us overcome this issue.”
Finding the Right Security Solution
After careful consideration, Abdi Ibrahim’s security team selected OPSWAT’s MetaDefender Kiosk as their peripheral – media protection solution to prevent malware and data breaches through secure file transfers.
MetaDefender Kiosk is fortified with multiple layers of defense. Its market-leading technology, such as Proactive DLP, Deep CDR, and MetaScan Multiscanning, aligned with Abdi Ibrahim’s need to maintain the highest levels of cybersecurity. This is particularly important in the pharmaceutical industry where sensitive intellectual property and compliance are critical.
MetaDefender Kiosk scans peripheral media of all types, processing and sanitizing files to ensure the media is clean and clear for use within protected manufacturing environments.
Our teams rely on peripheral media to transfer important data, but we couldn’t risk malware or breaches. The OPSWAT Kiosk ensures every USB, SD card, or file is safe to use before it even touches our systems.
Emin Tatlisu
Operations Technology Infrastructure Manager,Abdi Ibrahim Pharmaceuticals
Seamless Integration with No Downtime
“Our expectations from OPSWAT were to identify the types and volumes of our data and determine the equipment required to handle each transfer,” Mr. Tatlisu explained.
“Once we clarified these, we needed to ensure that the data was scanned securely and transferred safely. OPSWAT MetaDefender accomplished this seamlessly. During our proof-of-concept phase, we observed its reliability and effectiveness, and after achieving successful results, we implemented it in our live production environment.
“In the pharmaceutical industry, modifying computer systems used in production is extremely challenging. Every new installation must go through rigorous regulatory and validation processes. Any disruption to these systems could halt production, which is not an option for us. OPSWAT's agents operate seamlessly without causing downtime or slowing down our systems, allowing us to install them confidently on all necessary equipment and operating systems.”
Abdi Ibrahim placed OPSWAT’s MetaDefender Kiosk in a central location within the manufacturing lab near major production lines, making it easily accessible for employees needing to sanitize peripheral media before using them within the air-gapped network.
The ability of MetaDefender Kiosk to fit its environmental needs for various hardware in a variety of locations was a must to enable operations in a secure way, without requiring changes or delays in production. And the scalable, easy-to-implement solution was a perfect fit for both its security and operations teams.
We needed a solution that didn’t slow us down. The MetaDefender Kiosk fit seamlessly into our operations—our teams quickly adopted it, and it’s now a natural part of our workflow.
Emin Tatlisu
Operations Technology Infrastructure Manager,Abdi Ibrahim Pharmaceuticals
With the addition of OPSWAT’s MetaDefender Kiosk Mobile, a new security process paired with employee training was implemented, requiring all peripheral media to be scanned. Kiosk was integrated with Abdi Ibrahim’s network –access control system, to block all unscanned media from connecting to its protected network.
Using OPSWAT Central Management, Abdi Ibrahim is now able to centrally monitor and set access policies on all its Kiosk installations across multiple manufacturing locations. This enables the company to run audits to ensure employees adhere to company security protocols while also maintaining compliance with government regulators.
Following the success of the initial implementation, Abdi Ibrahim has ordered four additional Kiosks for 2025.
“One of the standout features of OPSWAT’s MetaDefender Kiosk is its ability to use Deep CDR and multiscanning,” Mr. Tatlisu said. “These tools enable us to scan [thousands] of data files daily and transfer them securely to our central archive servers. This provides great peace of mind as we can ensure clean data by filtering out potentially malicious content.
“Our technical team uses OPSWAT MetaDefender Kiosk daily. Previously, we conducted manual data transfers for 60 devices and scanned each file individually, which was a time-consuming process that often stretched into weeks or even months. Now, with OPSWAT MetaDefender Kiosk, we can complete these operations daily, greatly reducing our operational workload.”
Cybersecurity is critical in our industry, especially with so much sensitive intellectual property at stake. OPSWAT’s Kiosk gives us confidence that our operations are not only efficient but also secure from evolving threats.
Emin Tatlisu
Operations Technology Infrastructure Manager,Abdi Ibrahim Pharmaceuticals
For over a century, Abdi Ibrahim has been the leader in the pharmaceutical sector in Türkiye. Today they are continuing to lead the way in pharmaceutical manufacturing cybersecurity by taking effective measures to protect their OT assets, intellectual property, uptime, and customers from bad actors seeking to disrupt the flow of data and operations.
For over a century, we’ve focused on excellence and innovation. With OPSWAT’s support, we’re now setting a new standard in cybersecurity for the pharmaceutical industry.
Emin Tatlisu
Operations Technology Infrastructure Manager,Abdi Ibrahim Pharmaceuticals
Abdi Ibrahim leaders now have peace of mind that any peripheral media entering their air-gapped manufacturing facilities are sanitized and malware-free, which enables them to focus on operating more efficiently without fear of a malware attack impeding production.
“Many pharmaceutical companies face the same challenges we’ve encountered,” Mr. Tatlisu said, “particularly around securing batch reports, audit trails, and formula data. These are critical for regulatory compliance and must be stored securely. For this reason, I highly recommend OPSWAT MetaDefender Kiosk as one of the best solutions available for the industry.”
