The Royal British Legion (RBL) is the largest Armed Forces charity in the UK, with 180,000 members, 110,000 volunteers and a vast network of partners and charities. They have been providing lifelong support to serving and ex-serving personnel and their families since 1921. RBL works to ensure that the unique contribution of the Armed Forces community is never forgotten and provides support wherever and whenever it is needed.
RBL’s support starts after one day of service and continues through life long after service is over. They provide expert advice and guidance, recovery and rehabilitation services, and assist with the transition to civilian life. RBL’s support is not limited to members of the Armed Forces but extends to their families.
To protect the organization’s data, RBL already had a CISO and Microsoft Defender in place before partnering with Ontinue. Their goal was to swiftly incorporate new tools and technologies to make the most out of their existing investments. Even though they had a Microsoft Sentinel trial running for testing, they required experts’ assistance to ensure a successful deployment. Additionally, RBL recognized the importance of minimizing log source expenses and understanding Microsoft Sentinel costs.
Improving their Microsoft Secure Score was a top priority for RBL, as they viewed it as a measure of success. To stay up-to-date with potential risks, vulnerabilities, and threats, they sought out a SOC to provide guidance to their IT and Security team. Recommendations for improvement emphasized the need for an internal resource dedicated to maximizing productivity with fewer resources.
RBL first sought an MXDR service to free up time and resources that would be needed to recruit and train in-house staff to handle their cybersecurity needs. Additionally, RBL wanted to work with a company that would be proactive in their approach to cybersecurity and would be able to provide a comprehensive solution that met their unique requirements.
After conducting a competitive procurement process, RBL chose to work with Ontinue.
Solution provides peace of mind
Ontinue was able to quickly onboard the organization and put into place a robust security solution that has given RBL the peace of mind they need to focus on their core mission.
RBL Head of Service Delivery Sally-Anne Fricker says that one of the main reasons they chose to go with Ontinue was because of the proactive nature of their work. “Ontinue has a group of very technical individuals who work in a truly agile way, and they are pretty clever,” she says.
RBL’s security posture has significantly improved since partnering with Ontinue, who deployed Microsoft Sentinel and integrated it with Microsoft Defender. “We needed to have a formulaic, considered approach to Sentinel to manage the costs carefully,” Sally-Anne said.
“The automation bit is really good for us,” she noted. “If there’s an incident, there’s a fully automated process so it gets escalated up naturally. I’m not relying on someone picking up the phone and calling me. The instant something’s detected, it automatically raises a ticket through the Microsoft Teams channel. All that automation saves so much time.”
RBL’s team is now much better informed and has a much better understanding of how to protect their employees, members and volunteers. Sally-Anne feels that if there was an intrusion or attack, they would be well protected and Ontinue would be very proactive about it. RBL has since been able to focus more on their core mission and have peace of mind knowing that their data and systems are in good hands.
“We know we’ve got a level of automation keeping things under control,” says Stuart McSkimming, Chief Information Officer at RBL. “When things do crop up, and they’re escalated to us, we don’t need to be spending huge amounts of management time on these things because we know it’s under control. That’s an advantage to us.”
Optimizing RBL’s Microsoft investment
The RBL team was impressed with Ontinue’s proactivity and commitment to helping them get the most out of the service. They also felt the company’s values aligned with their own.
Since working with Ontinue, RBL has seen a marked improvement in their overall security posture. They have been able to quickly address incidents as they arise, and they feel better prepared to handle any potential threats in the future.
Sally-Anne believes that other charities would benefit from working with an MSSP like Ontinue, as it would allow them to focus on their mission, while leaving the security of their organization in the hands of experts.
