South Staffs aims to be most protected cyber region

South Staffordshire District Council is moving further towards its goal of making its geographical area the most protected in the country from cyber-attack.

The forward-thinking district council is running a pilot programme to demonstrate the effectiveness of the cyber security solution AppGuard to its 27 parish councils. It hopes this will lead to take up across the parishes of the technology which it has already deployed with success across its own organisation.

South Staffordshire implemented AppGuard in 2020 through iESE and its relationship with Assurity Systems, the European distributor of the product. Peter Shakespear, Corporate Director Finance & Resources at South Staffordshire Council, explained that the pilot would subsidise the implementation of AppGuard in one or two of its local parishes for a period. He said he was confident AppGuard would demonstrate its ability to prevent security breaches.

South Staffordshire Council is convinced by the technology having seen many other local authorities hit the headlines in recent years due to attacks which have caused high levels of damage to operations, resulting in high spend in recovery costs and untold reputational damage with customers. “Other local authorities have not had this protection and it has cost them millions of pounds,” said Shakespear, “For our parishes, this gives a solution that is integrated and matched with the district. After the trial we will hopefully have 27 parishes asking: Where do we sign?”

In addition to showing that AppGuard can prevent cyber-attacks, Shakespear said the trial should also demonstrate that the parishes taking part could potentially scale back some of their other protection, allowing some savings to be made.

As part of its objective to make South Staffordshire the geographical area most protected in the country from cyber-attack, the district council is also offering local businesses access to AppGuard at preferential rates through its business place partnership. “It is great to be able to go to a small parish council or a small business and tell them they can have a level of cyber security they never imagined and that we can make that accessible through iESE. Signing up is common sense. For me this isn’t a nice-to-have, this is the reality of the 21st Century. Cyber-attacks are increasing by the day, and we have to be one step ahead. Other solutions on the market are one step behind. It is an absolute essential,” he added.

Brad Collier, an iESE Associate who has been working with South Staffordshire on its implementation of AppGuard, praised the council for its foresight. “iESE set a mission five years ago to make the UK the safest place to live and work in Europe one local authority at a time. South Staffordshire are an innovative council making this a reality. The pilot is going to open the eyes of the parish councils as to how simple it is to protect themselves and their organisation. It is not complicated or expensive. New customers need to spend a short amount of time doing a survey and then installing the licence is a 20minute process. In less than an hour it is possible to take away the pain that might occur from a targeted cyber-attack that could disrupt your whole business.”

AppGuard is an endpoint cyber security solution which will protect your systems from all threats –even the never-seen-before attack known as ‘zero-day’. Developed in the US defence environment, it has recently become commercially available in the UK and is being offered to local authorities by iESE through a partnership with its European distributors, Assurity Systems Ltd. AppGuard offers the required step-change in endpoint and server defence because it operates in an entirely different way to traditional solutions. The patented technology monitors everything and trusts nothing, meaning it offers full protection without the need to detect previously known exploits.

iESE has teamed up with Assurity Systems Ltd to bring this exciting, transformational technology to the UK’s local government environment. We have secured highly preferential rates (discounts exceeding 50 per cent) meaning you can benefit from this technology for around £45 per annum per endpoint for a fully-managed solution, including licence fees. A server version is also available and if you need extra monitoring and support, we have also secured preferential rates on Security Operation Centre (SOC) services.

Another organisation set to trial AppGuard is Gloverspice School, an independent special school situated on a care farm in the Midlands. Headteacher, Lynne Duffy, has become concerned about the risk of cyber-crime and the potential impact on students following an attack on a nearby local authority maintained secondary school.

Although her school isn’t large, the headteacher realises cyber-attacks are indiscriminate, highlighting that the school would not be able to afford to pay a ransom. Although the organisation has existing protection, she believes schools are vulnerable due to lack of expertise, time and budgets. “Taking part in a trial is a really good opportunity. I think cybercrime is quite frightening and that local authorities need to do more training with headteachers on cyber security. A lot of the information available is not specific for schools,” she said.

She would like local authorities which subscribe to AppGuard to offer their preferential rates to schools too, including special schools such as her own. “Hopefully local authorities signing up to AppGuard will allow schools in their area to buy into it as well, including those they use for specialist placements. My students’ fees are paid by the local authority so they should be supporting schools like ours as well as those which are local authority maintained,” she added.

• Find out more: www.iese.org.uk/appguard