Financial Services & Technology

A Financial Services and Technology organisation takes a robust approach to secure its data, infrastructure, assets, and people, with stringent information security policies and procedures and a comprehensive security architecture comprising best-of-breed technical solutions.

Customer data is of paramount concern to the organisation and they are continuously improving their security maturity. As part of a heavily regulated industry, the ability to continuously monitor events on the network and detect cyber threats and anomalies is critical. This has been a manual process in the past, with analysts working through vast amounts of log data to identify incidents and undertake investigations.

The Challenge

The Financial Services and Technology organisation identified the need to save time and resources within its security team, improve its security posture and achieve rapid response times to security breaches.

“We reviewed several managed service providers”, said the Head of Cybersecurity at the Financial Services and Technology organisation. “Following a rigorous selection process, we chose Sapphire over their competitors due to their SOC staff’s experience, skills and expertise.

In addition to this, they understood the security challenges our industry faces and had a UK-based datacentre which ticked the box from a compliance perspective.”

“Keeping cybersecurity in-house was suggested; however, the up-keep and continuous recruitment of SOC analysts is expensive. Investing in a large team of cybersecurity professionals and managing that 24x7x365 was not a practical option in the long term. My recommendation was to outsource our cybersecurity to a managed service provider”.

The Solution

Sapphire has unrivalled experience with 25 years of mitigating cyber risk for some of the UK’s largest organisations. This means accessing the best possible people, processes, and technology for customers, and all are continually augmented to match a highly fluid threat landscape.

The Financial Services and Technology organisation acquired Sapphire’s Managed Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution on their Premium Service. Sapphire’s SOC team worked with the organisation to ensure that the onboarding was a seamless process and delivered successfully in the timeframe set out in the agreed project plan.

The organisation benefited from advanced threat detection within hours of the integration, knowing experienced and highly skilled analysts were monitoring activity. Internal time and resources became instantly more available as their security team no longer were required to review and investigate potential security events.

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Introduction

results

Impact of Sapphire’s Managed Security Solutions:

The organisation receives 24x7x365 threat monitoring, logging, analysis, notification, and threat hunting via Sapphire’s dedicated UK-based Security Operations Centre (SOC). The organisation is now resilient and better equipped to respond effectively to cyber threats.

Sapphire’s SOC analysts are an extension of the organisation’s IT team. Sapphire’s support has enabled the fintech organisation to maximise efficiency and accuracy while allowing them to focus on what matters most.

The Managed SIEM service has increased the level of monitoring and logging. Sapphire collects and processes data from across the organisation, including all devices and systems, providing a centralised view of all security events as they occur.

The organisation is now able to provide external auditors with improved cybersecurity reporting, showing comprehensive monitoring and alerting.

Detailed Reporting

The organisation’s, Infrastructure and Security Manager, said, “We’ve been using Sapphire’s managed services for a year now, and in that time, we have experienced a return on investment by saving time and freeing up our security team to focus their efforts on other areas of the business.”

Sapphire’s analysts focus on threat analysis and contextualised threat intelligence, providing expert assessments of complex security events. Each month, SOC customers receive detailed and actionable reports based on the activity and incidents that have taken place. These reports have rich commentary from analysts, delivering perspective and expert advice.

“The management reports from Sapphire are shared with our risk Managers regularly”, said the Infrastructure and Security Manager. “This enables the business to make critical decisions based on risk and is an integral part of our security strategy.”