The Challenge

Bromford has well-established risk management processes and control frameworks, which guide and support how they work, behave and the decisions they make. Security plays a pivotal role in Bromford’s culture and the need to protect customer data is integral to its IT strategy. To meet Bromford’s security goals, the housing association were looking to secure the services of a cyber security provider for regular penetration testing of its computer infrastructure, specific projects as they were delivered and ad-hoc testing of their suppliers and partners. One of the key requirements was that the provider had to align with Bromford’s DNA and become a trusted partner to the business to help reduce cyber exposure and implement industry good practice.

The Solution

Aristi were awarded a three-year contract to act as a cyber security partner for Bromford to provide penetration testing and information security services including:

Annual and ad-hoc IT Health Checks of Bromford’s network boundary infrastructure, websites and web applications, LAN, WAN and WLAN networks plus VPN technologies and cloud platforms

Cyber resilience support for business continuity which provides a review of Bromford’s business continuity processes and documentation to ensure they can continue to operate in the event of a cyber-attack, IT failure or staff loss due to the pandemic.

GDPR support to identify any gaps in compliance and develop an improvement plan.

Ongoing information security and assurance guidance and support to meet Bromford’s security targets and external certifications.

The Outcome

Soon after the initial project kick off meetings, the country went into lockdown due to COVID-19. To minimise the disruption to Bromford and meet the requirements of the government’s social distance guidance, we developed a secure remote testing facility to allow us to test Bromford’s internal and external IT infrastructure remotely. A detailed report was delivered identifying security vulnerabilities that needed addressing with recommendations and a remediation action plan. This has provided Bromford with a valuable security baseline to build upon. One of the key requirements was that the provider had to align with Bromford’s DNA and become a trusted partner to the business to help reduce cyber exposure and implement industry good practice.