Darktrace, the world’s leading AI company for cyber defense, has today announced that the City of Westland in Michigan, U.S. has deployed Darktrace for proactive cyber defense across its extensive digital infrastructure. With around 80,000 residents, the City of Westland’s security team is tasked with securing vast amounts of sensitive citizen data and ensuring the reliability of the city’s operations.

The City of Westland’s security team had been focused on building up the strength of its perimeter defenses, but after a close brush with CryptoLocker malware, they realized they needed to take a fundamentally new approach to the challenge of cyber security. Darktrace AI was quickly able to learn the pattern of ‘normal’ for the City’s network, detecting both external and internal threats as they emerged, and even ensuring that the perimeter solutions the City had put in place were working effectively.

Daniel Bourdeau, Chief Innovation Officer for City of Westland at the time of Darktrace’s deployment, said: “We refer to Darktrace as our ‘truth platform’. It shows us the truth of what’s going on within our organization every day.”

His successor, Craig Brown, commented: “Darktrace allows us to see if an attacker has infiltrated us or if a user has unintentionally created a security issue. If it is a user, we can educate them on best practices. If it is an external malicious actor, we can actively remediate the situation before more damage is done and then go back and identify the vulnerability that was exploited.”