Two years on, the university’s security posture is now in a more assured position, with SOC monitoring a key element of the managed services partnership. Performanta team lead, Tatenda Kawadza, liaises with the university’s IT team on a regular basis. He said: “The university had a list of log sources that we prioritised as part of the onboarding project. These are continuously assessed by our engineering and analyst teams and we make regular improvements via rule creation and refinement to ensure improved visibility. We would like to thank the university team for making this a really positive partnership.”

The CIO added: “A vulnerability assessment wasn’t part of the original agreement but when the need arose, Tatenda and the team were happy to get involved. They quickly got to grips with the assessment with minimum fuss.” Performanta’s ability to routinely monitor the environment while also educating the university’s staff on best practices around preventing, detecting and responding to incidents, has been keenly received. The CIO said: “The whole reporting structure at Performanta is impressive and the team are always fully available. The education they’ve provided to our team has been superb. I’d be happy to recommend them.”