Bright Futures: Strengthening cyber resilience in the care sector
Bright Futures is a leading provider of specialist care and education for young people and adults with autism, learning disabilities and associated complex needs. As the organisation expanded, its leadership remained committed to delivering the highest standard of support both in person and online.
With growth came a greater need for cyber protection that could scale with the business without increasing pressure on the internal IT team. To maintain a high level of security and cyber resilience, Bright Futures partnered with Aruga Cyber to ensure their cyber defences developed in step with the organisation, and that every individual in their care remained fully safeguarded.
Lee Barnes, IT Manager at Bright Futures, said: “Before Aruga Cyber came on board, we were relying on Windows Defender and Microsoft 365’s built-in tools, we were filtering through the noise, which made it more challenging to identify threats that were critical. The team at Aruga automated threat response, filtered out the noise, and helped us focus on the issues that matter.”
The Solution
To uphold Bright Futures’ high security standards, Aruga Cyber deployed its 24/7 Managed Security Operations Centre (SOC) within just one day, including Microsoft Sentinel, data connectors, analytics rules, threat intelligence feeds and a dedicated Microsoft Teams channel, protecting 1,100 users from day one.
Following deployment, Aruga then entered a four-week tuning and optimisation period to understand the organisation’s operations, identify standard behaviour patterns, and eliminate false positives before enabling automatic containment. This tuning continues over time to make sure protection grows and adapts alongside the business.
Since partnering with Aruga Cyber, Bright Futures has achieved a 90% reduction in false positives from when we first installed the tooling. High-severity threats are contained within 60 seconds, and 100% of incidents have been closed within the first 30 days. The organisation can now monitor and detect threats in real time, even when staff are working remotely, and the pressure on the internal IT team has significantly reduced. The integration with Microsoft Teams has also enabled quick updates, transparent reporting, and accessible expert advice whenever needed.
Lee added: “I’d absolutely recommend Aruga Cyber’s services and their SOC to other organisations, especially care and education providers. Their speed, automation and clarity have made a real difference.”
The health and social care sector has become an increasingly common target for cyber criminals due to the sensitive nature of the data it holds. Any disruption caused by a breach can have serious operational, regulatory, and reputational consequences.
Aruga Cyber’s Managed SOC offers care providers the ability to stay protected without needing a large in-house security team. The 24/7 monitoring ensures that threats are detected and contained as soon as they appear, while automated, AI-powered processes eliminate delays and human error. Each SOC implementation is tailored to the client’s systems and workflows, ensuring that protection is effective and efficient.
Aruga’s approach makes cyber security more accessible for care organisations. The reporting is clear and easy to understand, providing actionable insights which allow internal teams to make informed decisions and maintain oversight of their security environment.
If you’re an organisation in the care and education sector and want to find out more about how we can help strengthen your cyber defences so you can focus on supporting your service users, then book in a free consultation.
