CUSTOMER CASE STUDY SOLIHULL COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY CENTRE

Sophos MDR Complete
provides a SOC alternativefor Solihull College andUniversity Centre
Solihull College and University Centre is a further education institution, withcampuses in Solihull, North Solihull, and Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
The centre offers full-time, part-time, further education courses, bespoke
employment training and apprenticeships. It has around 10,000 students and
1,000 members of staff.

CUSTOMER-AT-A-GLANCE
Solihull College andUniversity CentreWebsite
www.solihull.ac.uk

Industry
Education

Number of Users
Circa 4,000 endpointsSophos Managed Services
Sophos Managed Detectionand Response (MDR)
Sophos ProductNetwork - Sophos Firewall

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY SOLIHULL COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY CENTRE“We were aware that cyber criminals were particularly targeting
schools and colleges and the massive impact that could have,both financially and in disruption to teaching and learning. We
couldn’t take the risk of this happening to us but we didn’t have thecapability in-house to get the level of assurance we needed.“Dave Gartside, Director of IT, Solihull College and University Centre

Acutely aware of increasingly prevalent threatsagainst education establishments, Solihull Collegeand University Centre sought a fully managed
cybersecurity solution. The college began exploring
the options available to them and in February 2023,
the college implemented Sophos MDR Complete.
Read on to understand why Sophos MDR waschosen over and above other solutions, and to learn
more about their journey.

Business challenges
Solihull College and University Centre had adopted
Sophos antivirus and firewalls back in 2017, but
over the years that followed, the college’s Directorof IT, Dave Gartside, was aware of the growingfrequency and complexity of cyber threats.
Although the college’s IT team excel in providing
comprehensive support to both staff and students
for all IT matters, they specialize in support
rather than security expertise. Securing the large
amount of data and safeguarding students were
key priorities for the college, but as the risk ofcyberattacks became of increasing concern, a key
challenge was getting the right expertise in place
to monitor and rapidly respond to threats. It had
also become apparent that threat actors were often
targeting institutions at busy periods such as examtime, or the beginning of school terms, as well as
outside of work hours, resulting in a 24/7 threat.

The option of developing a college security
operations centre (SOC) was considered, but
recruiting and retaining the right talent, plus having
employees available to work around the clock would
prove difficult and expensive. Dave Gartside worked
with the IT team to explore the solutions available
to the college for 24/7/365 cybersecurity. Together,
they assessed several options, including moving
to Microsoft Defender and employing a third party
to operate as a SOC for the college. However, as anexisting customer Dave already trusted Sophos, andSophos also offered the best scope for integration
into the college’s existing systems.

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY SOLIHULL COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY CENTRE“The assurance we get from Sophos MDR isfantastic, but what I particularly like about
the service is the human interaction andescalation points. This is what differentiates
Sophos from other providers.“
Dave Gartside, Director of IT, Solihull College and University Centre

The technical solution
Following the assessments carried out by thecollege, Sophos MDR Complete for Endpoint andServer was implemented in February 2023. With
MDR Complete, the college receives cybersecurity
as a service with ransomware and breachprevention services 24/7/365. This effectively
provides the equivalent of an instant SOC, giving
the IT team more time to focus on supporting staffand students. The MDR service was implemented
alongside the college’s existing solution, whichmeant that its cybersecurity has been significantly
strengthened, without the need to duplicate
contracts or purchase new infrastructure.
Dave and his team have found the serviceinvaluable in day-to-day operations and use theSophos Central interface each morning to checkthe activity across all the college’s 4,000 endpoints.
For any alerts or suspicious activity, they have theassurance that these will be managed by Sophos’
active team of threat-hunting experts, who are also
on hand around the clock to discuss any concerns.
As part of the MDR Complete service, all staff andstudents at the college also receive free Sophos
Home licences.

Business benefits
Since implementing Sophos MDR Complete, Solihull
College and University Centre has experienced
significant benefits. Dave highlights the convenience
the service delivers as the #1 standout benefit,
saying: “With Sophos MDR Complete, we basicallyhave our own expert SOC, without the need to recruitand manage the team ourselves, which would beextremely challenging.” Dave lists additional benefits
as being:
Ì 24/7/365 managed threat detection and responseÌ The ability to triage security incidences with Sophos
Ì Easy visibility across all endpoints in asingle dashboard with Sophos Central
Ì The ability to easily integrate the service
with existing infrastructure and solutionsCUSTOMER CASE STUDY SOLIHULL COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY CENTRE

Ì Assurance that staff and student
data is effectively protectedÌ Time savings for the IT team, enablingthem to focus on other important tasks
Ì Free Sophos Home licences forall staff and students
Ì Support from Sophos’ industry-leading
threat detection and response experts“For anyone in asimilar position, I’dhighly recommend
the Sophos MDR
service. Institutions
like ours can’ttake a risk withcybersecurity. With
this service we
get access to thesecurity expertise
we need to preventthe worst fromhappening.“Dave Gartside, Director of IT, Solihull
College and University Centre

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