State Government of Sinaloa
Building trust in a digital government
When José Enrique Rangel Ramírez became Director of Information Security and Access at the State Government of Sinaloa in early 2022, he was tasked with strengthening the state’s cybersecurity posture across a vast and complex public network.
“The biggest challenge was awareness,” he recalls. “We needed to help every government employee understand that cybersecurity isn’t an obstacle — it’s part of their responsibility to protect citizens’ data.”
Balancing strict data protection regulations, scarce funding, and growing digitalization, Sinaloa’s IT team began searching for a smarter, more proactive approach to cybersecurity. In 2024, they found it in Darktrace / NETWORK™, an AI-powered solution capable of monitoring and defending thousands of devices in real time.
From reactive defenses to autonomous protection
Before deploying Darktrace, Sinaloa’s defenses depended on traditional tools that required constant manual monitoring. That meant security teams often discovered issues after they occurred.
“Darktrace changed the rules of the game,” says Rangel Ramírez. “It’s like having a security expert that never sleeps. The system alerts us in seconds and often resolves the incident before we even open the app.”
Using Darktrace / NETWORK, the State Government of Sinaloa gained complete visibility across its digital ecosystem — from offices to remote endpoints — analyzing over 1.1 petabytes of network traffic between January and October 2025. Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI established a dynamic understanding of “normal” behavior for every device and user, detecting anomalies instantly and taking action autonomously.
Rangel Ramírez notes that Darktrace’s AI often highlights activity patterns that traditional tools would overlook — for instance, unusually large data uploads to external AI platforms that could put citizen information at risk. These detections allow his team to act before any data is exposed.
“When Darktrace detects that, we can immediately intervene and prevent potential data exposure,” he explains. “Our responsibility is to safeguard citizens’ personal data. If the system flags that a user is uploading large volumes of information to an external AI platform, we act right away — we speak with the person, explain why that’s not allowed under our policies, and reinforce data-protection standards. In some cases, these insights have even led us to create new internal policies based on what Darktrace observed.”
Securing more than 5,000 devices with precision and speed
Today, Darktrace monitors over 5,000 client devices and servers across the state’s network, autonomously blocking and containing suspicious behavior before it escalates.
According to Darktrace telemetry, between January and October 2025:
- 20,962 incidents were investigated by Cyber AI Analyst™, saving an estimated 14,146 analyst hours (valued at over $240,000 USD).
- 87,167 anomalous behaviors were autonomously contained — every one of them without requiring human confirmation.
- The average time to acknowledge threats dropped to three minutes, with zero human confirmation delays.
- The AI’s real-time response prevented an estimated $8.45 million USD in potential incident costs.
The visibility we have now is extraordinary,” says Rangel Ramírez. “Our team is small, but with Darktrace, we can respond to incidents in real time and rest assured that the AI will act instantly when needed.”
Recognition through innovation
In 2024, Sinaloa’s proactive approach to cybersecurity earned national recognition when the government received Mexico’s “AI in Government 2024” award from the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT). The award celebrates Sinaloa’s pioneering use of Self-Learning AI to secure public infrastructure and citizen services.
“This recognition means a lot for our state,” Rangel Ramírez says proudly. “It shows that we’re leading by example — demonstrating that technology and responsible innovation can go hand in hand to protect citizens.”
Preparing for the future of AI-driven defense
Following its recent renewal with Darktrace, the State Government of Sinaloa is now exploring expansion into other areas of AI-driven protection.
“The renewal gives us peace of mind,” says Rangel Ramírez. “Darktrace is always evolving — the updates, the training platform, and the visibility it provides are invaluable. Next, we’re interested in exploring Darktrace / EMAIL™ for added protection across our communications.”
With continuous monitoring, autonomous response, and measurable results, Sinaloa is setting a new standard for cybersecurity in governments all around.
Every peso we’ve invested in this technology has paid off,” concludes Rangel Ramírez. “We’ve saved millions of pesos, prevented countless incidents, and most importantly, built trust in the security of our digital government.”
