ELFT began working with ITHealth in January 2017 when it invested in Sophos Intercept X (the award-winning anti-exploit, anti-ransomware endpoint solution). The Intercept X implementation included ITHealth migrating the Trust from SEC (Sophos Enterprise Console) to Sophos Central (the cloud-based endpoint and server management platform). Now AV, Intercept X, UTM, Server Advanced, and web appliance all run off a unified console; all Sophos products are managed and administered from a single web interface and there’s no need to maintain or update an on-site server.
When WannaCry hit in May 2017, ELFT were unaffected. However, despite not being hit, the attack increased awareness of the importance of robust security measures and encouraged ELFT to make further proactive investments.
In November 2017, ELFT had come to realise how ITHealth’s NHS IT security focus and level of expertise was benefitting its organisation, so they opted for Sophos enhanced support from ITHealth. Accredited to the highest level of Sophos partnership, ITHealth’s partner status meant its enhanced support gave ELFT: unlimited calls to the ITHealth service desk, access to ITHealth’s Sophos accredited technicians and their direct line to Sophos’ 3rd line support, as well as on-site consultation visits. Soon after, in January 2018, the service was further upgraded and ITHealth now provide a fully managed service for all Sophos products. ITHealth’s technical consultants act as an extension of ELFT’s own IT team – proactively ensuring the Sophos systems run optimally, conform to best practice, and that ELFT get the most out of their investments made in Sophos.
More recently, ELFT have come to benefit from ITHealth’s Assurance Dashboard Solution – a solution which provides a single, unified dynamic view of the vulnerability and assurance levels that exist throughout ELFT’s IT estate. A key feature that particularly benefits ELFT is the automation of nearly all NHSD CareCERTs. CareCERT alerts, as they are released, are fed into the Dashboard which then allows rapid assessment of infrastructure risk levels related to each alert. ELFT, with ITHealth, now proactively manage all vulnerabilities and can confidently report assurance levels to the board through detailed monthly reports provided by ITHealth.
Additionally, ELFT’s CIO Daniel Woodruffe can access the Dashboard at any time and see at-a-glance a dynamic view of the assurance and vulnerability levels of the ELFT IT estate without having to ask his team for a report.