Because cyber crime isn’t a 9 to 5 thing
Heritage Lifecare, one of New Zealand’s largest providers of Residential Aged Care services, faced an important choice on cybersecurity – hire someone, or outsource it to a provider of around-the-clock managed security services.
As Glen Wilson, Heritage Lifecare’s GM Technology, says, cybercriminals don’t keep office hours like a full-time employee does. “We were aware that most positions are a classic 9 to 5 role, and that cybercrime isn’t. That potentially left us exposed if, say, an attack or incident rolled in at 2am on a Saturday.”
With this realisation that a sole internal security analyst, no matter how capable they are, was not going to be sufficient, Heritage Lifecare turned to cybersecurity specialists SSS for help.
Preventing caring people from those who don’t care
Initially Heritage began with SSS’ managed detection and response service, now called ‘Scouter’, which addresses various threats and abnormalities, prevents attacks and remediates any issues identified in the cyber environment. It also implemented SSS’ Advanced Phishing Triage Service, that combines automation with real-time threat intelligence, analysing and responding to user-submitted suspicious e-mail samples.
These engagements were received positively, and led to further engagements including the introduction of SSS’ fully managed Email Reputation Service, which removes many of the attack vectors used by malicious actors, targeting one of Wilson’s main concerns – good staff being taken in by bad people.
As Wilson says: “It doesn’t matter how secure your systems are, social engineering means a hacker could get hold of someone’s perfectly valid credentials through phishing or spoofing. Many of our staff are care professionals with clinical backgrounds and are not in front of a computer all day They are busy caring for people – so, while we actively train and educate, this remains a risk area, as it does in most organisations.”
Simulating reality, to be better prepared for a real event
SSS have also run attack simulations with Heritage’s Senior Leadership Team, which Wilson describes as an ideal opportunity to get real with cybersecurity.
“Our exec team already takes security very seriously, and this exercise managed to highlight the risks further as a series of compounding events unfolded over a half-day simulation. This gave us all a better understanding of how to react most effectively.
“This Incident Response Exercise was instructive as it shows what can go wrong and how dependent we are on our systems. That raises awareness to a suitable level and can help with elevating understanding to support security initiatives.”
More firepower, more confidence, comparable costs
Heritage are now treating SSS as their outsourced security team. Wilson says having SSS in his and Heritage Lifecare’s corner provides added confidence that there is proactive protection as well as access to immediate and detailed response and remediation from a full team, rather than a single individual.
Finally, he says that improved peace of mind comes at a comparable cost to internal resourcing with the additional benefits of greater coverage and access to a broader talent pool of security specialists. “Security isn’t our core business, caring for people is. With more in touch specialists at SSS looking after our security, the simple advantage is that we benefit.”
