Midlands Council Case Study

With demand for online services on the rise and remote working becoming the “new normal”, it’s never been more important for local authorities’ cyber security systems to be safe and secure.

Without it, a simple click of a button from just one employee could disable hundreds of endpoints and servers, cause weeks of disruption for customers and staff and potentially put vulnerable residents at risk.

There’s an economic cost too, as Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council recently found out when hackers left it with a reported bill of approximately £11 million (to date) to rebuild all of its online systems.

The world has changed and Local Authorities IT Services have increasing demands to protect their systems from the new sophisticated attacks. Therefore, investment in new cyber security technology is vital to ensure secure remote working, improve efficiencies and meet customer demand to access public services online.

Just ask a forward-thinking Midlands Council, which is about to embark on its second phase of an ambitious business transformation programme to digitise its business.

Data is at the heart of the Council’s transformation, sharing and collaborating with people and organisations who sit outside the traditional boundaries of the Council’s network. Along with this agile way of working there is a recognition of the risks posed by a new wave of sophisticated attacks and the need to combat them to protect the Council’s data and service delivery – and that’s where AppGuard comes in.

AppGuard is unlike any other cyber security technology on the market.

Created for the US security agencies it is the only system around that offers a continuous defence against all forms of attacks – even those which have not yet been developed (zero-day).

This is because AppGuard works differently, operating at the kernel to block all attacks.

When something unusual is detected, it is blocked immediately – stopping all malicious activities. They will not detonate. This makes it truly the safest and smartest form of protection on the market.

And the best thing is the user will not even know; this all happens in the background without any programmes or applications being closed down.

These benefits make it such an attractive investment for the Council.

“The Council’s strategic approach to cyber risks is employing a best practice defence in-depth model. AppGuard provides a novel solution for the Council to enhance the protection of its endpoints” explains their Senior Infrastructure & Communications Officer, ICT Services.

Assistant Director, Business Transformation, commented: “While we’re just a few months into the partnership, it is clear that AppGuard offers us full protection against the increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks so we can, with confidence, deliver our ambitious transformation programme for staff and residents.”

AppGuard’s European Distributors, Assurity Systems, supplied this technology to the Midlands Council under a special arrangement with iESE, supporting its Digital Transformation programme for councils.

Understanding the desire to move to a digital-first business model, iESE and Assurity worked closely with the council’s ICT team to establish a proof of concept. Being the first Council to adopt the AppGuard solution in the United Kingdom, they undertook a robust assurance process to ensure AppGuard provided the expected protection as well as ensuring there was no disruption to systems, staff or customers. Incredibly all of this was achieved smoothly during lockdown.

The impact on the council’s ICT team was, and continues to be, minimal because Assurity offers a fully managed service for AppGuard.

Unlike traditional systems AppGuard has such a light footprint that it does not bloat or slow down any of your systems, taking up only 1MB of space on endpoints. It also provides continual protection even when devices are not attached to the internet and does not rely on constant AV signature updates to remain protected against the latest threats.

AppGuard’s new technology is already being used to protect millions of users, including governments, security agencies, large businesses and small and medium enterprises.

“The support and responsiveness of the iESE and Assurity teams have been fantastic during the proof of concept and staged rollout of AppGuard”, commented the Assistant Director, “Staff are unaware of the work going on behind the scenes to give them this extra protection – this is exactly how cyber defences should be, effective but unintrusive to day to day operations”.

Senior Infrastructure & Communications Officer, ICT said: “AppGuard is incredibly forensic, providing an extremely high level of security which provides us with real peace of mind as we look to transform the organisation into a digital-first council.”

Eileen Buck, Director of Sales at Assurity Systems, said: “I have been involved in providing cyber security software for over 30 years to Public Sector, NHS and large corporates and I have never seen anything as powerful as AppGuard. We are delighted to be able to offer this preferential deal via iESE to protect critical infrastructure.”