About the Client

AdImpact is a leading advertising intelligence and SaaS company specializing in tracking and analyzing advertising data across various media channels. Potomac powered by AdImpact is a comprehensive political media buying platform created by industry professionals. It streamlines the entire process, from media planning to trafficking, in one cloud-based solution. With features like automated rate importing, electronic orders, and sell-side make goods, Potomac enhances efficiency and accuracy in political ad buying. The platform’s intuitive interface, coupled with robust security measures, allows media buyers to focus on strategic decisions rather than routine tasks. Potomac represents a significant advancement in political media workflow, tailored specifically to the needs of today’s political advertising professionals. 

The Challenge

AdImpact sought to enhance its application’s infrastructure to meet evolving security and scalability needs. The existing setup presented opportunities for improvement in several key areas. These included network security, access management, logging capabilities, and overall architectural design.   

The company recognized the importance of aligning Potomac with best practices in cloud security and application deployment. This involved reassessing aspects such as database protection, instance management, user access controls, and logging mechanisms. 

Additionally, AdImpact aimed to optimize its AWS account structure to better support access control and security isolation. The challenge was to design and implement a comprehensive infrastructure upgrade that would not only address current needs but also provide a robust foundation for future growth and scalability. 

This strategic initiative would focus on enhancing security measures, improving operational efficiency, and ensuring the application could readily adapt to increasing demands and evolving industry standards. 

The Solution

Rhythmic implemented a comprehensive redesign of AdImpact’s AWS infrastructure to address security concerns and create a scalable, maintainable environment. Critical assets were moved to private subnets, dramatically reducing the attack surface and enhancing protection against unauthorized access and data breaches. Rhythmic migrated from a single EC2 instance to Amazon ECS with Application Load Balancers and Web Application Firewall integration, significantly improving security, scalability, and resource utilization. 

User authentication and authorization were enhanced with AWS Identity Center, replacing long-lived IAM credentials with short-lived, SSO-based access. Rhythmic established an AWS Organizations structure to isolate applications and implement fine-grained access control. Auto-scaling capabilities were implemented to handle traffic spikes and potential DDoS attempts. 

Rhythmic improved secret management to eliminate exposed credentials risks and deployed Amazon CloudFront to enhance performance and security. CloudWatch was integrated for centralized logging and monitoring, including CIS monitors to track critical events. Rhythmic setup AWS GuardDuty for threat detection, AWS Config to record configuration changes, and Cost Explorer for spend anomaly detection. 

AWS Services Used

The Results

Rhythmic significantly enhanced AdImpact’s infrastructure and operational capabilities. The company now boasts a more robust defense against various cyber threats, including unauthorized access, DDoS attacks, and potential data breaches, which protects sensitive data and maintains client trust. Performance improvements, facilitated by auto-scaling capabilities and better resource utilization, ensure consistent service delivery even during peak traffic times. The enhanced logging and monitoring capabilities enable faster incident response and provide valuable operational insights, empowering AdImpact to make data-driven decisions and swiftly address any issues. 

The new infrastructure, designed with scalability in mind, supports AdImpact’s growth without compromising security or performance. Collectively, these enhancements allow AdImpact to offer more reliable, secure, and scalable services, positioning them to easily meet various industry compliance standards.  

By anticipating future needs, the company is better prepared for evolving technological demands and potential security threats, resulting in a more resilient, efficient, and trustworthy technological foundation for AdImpact’s business operations.

Learn more about AdImpact here.