Using digital transformation to provide quantifiable time savings

Sophos is a world leader in next-generation cybersecurity, protecting more than 500,000 organisations and millions of consumers in more than 150 countries from today’s most advanced cyber threats.

Espria is the expert in the delivery of IT services. It is an award-winning and trusted provider of IT solutions, managed and integrated services to a wide range of UK organisations of all sizes.

Business Challenges

Several years ago, Tendring District Council implemented on-premise Sophos Endpoint Protection Advanced and was happy with the solution. More recently, the council has focussed on further digital transformation, moving all services and servers to a cloud environment.

With this in mind, and working with Espria, the council opted to transition to cloud-based Sophos Central. Completed in May 2020, Espria supported the organisation in working remotely with an ongoing priority for IT security after a minor ransomware incident caused the team to be highly aware of the prevalence of attacks in their sector.

The Technical Solution

The council moved to Sophos Central for cloud-based IT security for endpoints and servers with the added benefit of ransomware protection from Intercept X Advanced with EDR. The council also called in Sophos Professional Services to assist with the installation. Throughout the project, the team at the council used each step as a way of learning about the solutions, which included:

• Sophos Central: a unified console for managing Sophos products

• Intercept X Advanced for Server with EDR which protects virtual and physical servers without sacrificing performance, including one-click Server Lockdown

• Intercept X Advanced with EDR: a signatureless anti-exploit, anti-ransomware and root cause analysis tool that protects endpoints from advanced threats

• Professional Services: consultation, implementation and configuration of solutions aligned with security needs and Sophos best practices.

Business Benefits

Sam Wright is Cyber Security & Systems Manager at Tendring District Council. He lists the benefits of the Sophos/Espria partnership and moving to Sophos Central as being:

• Automation: the automation in Sophos Central when detecting and alerting potential threats eases the pressure on the IT team

• The interface: the team finds the Sophos Central interface very easy to use and issue-free, particularly when working remotely

• Threat analysis: Sam was impressed with the Sophos Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) threat analysis in Intercept X Advanced with top threat indicators, live discovery and multiple categories and queries

• Behaviour analysis: Intercept X Advanced examines the behaviour of attacks rather than definition – a different approach that provides heightened security

• Data security: Device Control within Sophos Central keeps data safe and the council compliant with GDPR

• Price: Sam believes he got a good deal from Sophos with customer-specific pricing

• Service: “The council is pleased with the service it has received from Sophos and Espria who are there to help whenever it’s needed.”

Sam is so pleased with Sophos’ services and the solutions provided that he has recommended them to his peers in the Essex Online Partnership – a collaboration of authorities including emergency services – and he also ran a demo for them.

“I’m always happy to recommend Sophos & Espria,” he says. “It’s easy to use, makes complete sense and empowers our technicians. Plus, Sophos is a well-established and trusted company that’s here for the long term. Sophos has definitely played a key role in our digital transformation project.”

Testament to the hard work carried out by the team, Tendring District Council were shortlisted in The MJ Achievement Awards 2020, in the Digital Transformation category.

“Our technicians are very happy with Espria & Sophos Central. It makes it easy for them to drill down, review and investigate any issues that arise. It just makes sense, and it empowers our team.”