AI: Value & Velocity
Drives productivity but also speeds attacks through scaled phishing and rapid exploit use.
Supply Chain: Risks That Cascade
Single failures ripple across sectors; require regular evidence from critical providers.
Regulations: From Guidance to Obligations
DORA, Cyber Resilience Act and UK policies demand stronger oversight, testing and reporting.
Exposed Providers
Benchmark performance against today’s attack speed and require hard evidence of prevention, detection and recovery.
Accountability Stays With You
Evidence supplier performance and risk reduction, not just SLAs. For example, Marks & Spencer did not renew its IT Service Desk contract with TCS after its April 2025 cyber incident, underscoring renewed scrutiny of supplier resilience and service levels.
Measure Response. Not Tickets.
Track alert acknowledgement, escalation and time to contain with proof. In the recent Capita case a high-priority alert fired within 10 minutes, yet the infected device was not quarantined for 58 hours – giving attackers time to move and exfiltrate data.
Control Privileged Access
Enforce phishing-resistant MFA, tiered admin access and continuous token monitoring for supplier identities. The ICO found no robust admin tiering at Capita, enabling privilege escalation and lateral movement across domains.
High Costs. No Clarity.
Heavy data ingestion and duplicate tools inflate SIEM bills and service fees. Reporting stays at ticket counts, not risk reduction, leaving boards without clear evidence of control or value realised. Budgets rise while exposure and accountability remain unchanged.
Defaults. Left Untuned.
Detections, runbooks and EDR policies sit at vendor defaults for months. Penetration Tests are "one-off" at go-live and findings stay siloed across teams, gaps persist and delay meaningful hardening. Operational debt accumulates, eroding confidence, audit readiness and incident performance.
24x7? Only On Paper.
Night shifts escalate to day teams; decision and containment lag. The ICO cited an understaffed Capita SOC and missed response targets in the months before the incident - a warning sign for any provider
Build The Business Case
Quantify risk, cost to serve and ROI, then tie to outcomes and regulatory duties.
The Buyer’s Guide
Choose or benchmark a provider using clear capability and coverage criteria.
Board Report Checklist
Track detection, response, coverage and supplier control KPIs with set thresholds.
Total Cost of Ownership Worksheet
Map tools, licences, data ingestion, people and services to one view.
RFP Score Sheet with Objective Weighting
Score solutions consistently and objectively with weighting and evidence.
90-Day Onboarding Plan Template
Define roles, communications and key milestones with clear outcomes.
Proof of Value Framework
Run a focused 30-day test with clear success criteria.
Outcomes You Can Measure
Request severity-based targets for time to detect and time to respond, along with month-on-month trends and executive commentary.
Analyst-In-The-Loop Automation
Look for a human-led, AI-augmented model that speeds decision-making, cuts noise at scale and leaves a clear audit trail of actions.
Signal Quality Over Ticket Volume
Measure and reduce noise, prove alert fidelity and stop counting tickets as progress.
Real Tuning Beyond Out-Of-The-Box
Requires named runbook owners, change control and tuning tailored to your environment and attack paths.
Protection Of Your Critical Assets
Expect crown-jewel mapping, tiered runbooks and an independently accredited team recognised by global industry bodies.
NCSC-Certified Incident Response On-Demand
NCSC-certified Cyber Incident Response can be mobilised quickly for faster coordination and simple management.
MITRE ATT&CK-Mapped Detections
Detections aligned to MITRE ATT&CK, with time-to-value shown in reduced dwell time and missed behaviours.
Identity-First Controls
Phishing-resistant MFA, conditional access and continuous token analytics with clear reporting of risk reduction.
Co-Managed. Not a Black Box.
Ask for a named team, clear escalation paths and regular joint reviews with transparent decision logs.
Proven Experience You Can Verify
Request documented playbooks, references and examples of complex investigations, not just tool certifications.
Full Lifecycle Support
Choose a provider that can advise, implement and run Consulting, Professional and Managed services aligned to a single cyber maturity roadmap.
One Portal. Real Transparency.
Expect live incidents, intelligence and board-ready reports in one place, so value is visible.
Multi-Channel, Audit-Ready Communications
Require rapid comms. across IM, Phone and Email with decisions and escalations captured for compliance and learning.
Cost Control By Design
Ingestion guardrails, retention policies and clear cost drivers so spend tracks to a useful signal, not raw data volume.
Platformised "Best of Suite" Solution
Unified telemetry to reduce tool overlap, improve time to respond and maximise value from existing investments.
Data Residency By Design
Data stays in your tenant so you retain full sovereignty, visibility and control.
