⸻ Customer Stories
“A no-brainer for us”: Why Broadacres chose LIMA’s VDR security service
Company background
Broadacres is a not-for-profit housing association based in the market town of Northallerton in North Yorkshire. The organisation owns and manages more than 6,800 homes across North Yorkshire and beyond.
With a commitment to go the extra mile to support its most vulnerable customers, Broadacres provides a range of additional services including mental health support, women’s refuge and domestic abuse support, and learning disability services.
Broadacres has a vision to be the best rural housing association in the country. To realise this vision the organisation needs the best digital systems, underpinned by robust security measures.
T E S T I M O N I A L
“VDR saves my team several days a week just on vulnerability and patch management. It gives us peace of mind, and that bit of time back to work on our own projects. We’ve reduced the likelihood of a breach, which means we’re doing a better job of protecting our employees, our customers and the whole organisation."
Steve Cook | Infrastructure and Security Manager | Broadacres
The challenge
Broadacres is halfway through a five-year program of digital transformation, including a move from an on-premise legacy housing management systems to Salesforce – a huge project.
The IT team is seen across the organisation as a key enabler in achieving its goals, but the management of a constant stream of new security vulnerabilities was slowing the team down and pulling focus from key priorities.
Steve Cook, Infrastructure and Security Manager at Broadacres, explains: “As housing associations, we manage a lot of sensitive personal data about our customers. We've got to make sure that data is as secure as we can possibly make it, while ensuring business continuity from an IT perspective.
“The current security landscape is terrifying. It's constantly evolving and it's getting much worse. Threat actors are using AI tools to make it even harder for us.
“There has also been a rise in targeted attacks against social housing providers, and an uptick in ransomware and attempts to exploit vulnerabilities in housing management systems.”
The solution
To counter security risks and reduce pressure on the IT team, Broadacres turned to a trusted managed service partner, employing LIMA’s homegrown VDR (Vulnerability, Detection and Remediation) service.
VDR is an end-to-end managed security service covering the entire IT environment across 500+ technologies. VDR reviews your IT assets, and LIMA’s team of experienced security experts take care of vulnerability detection and remediation.
Steve said: “VDR saves my team several days a week just on vulnerability and patch management. We are very busy and we've got a number of projects on, so managing those projects alongside dealing with vulnerabilities was just becoming too much. VDR gives us peace of mind, and that bit of time back to work on our own projects.
“Getting buy-in from the board for investment in VDR wasn’t hard. We can see the results, we can see the number of vulnerabilities going down, and it’s considerably cheaper than hiring a member of staff – not to mention the cost of a breach or ransomware attack.
“Boardrooms generally are a lot more aware of the importance of cybersecurity than they were even a few years ago.”
LIMA takes care of everything for VDR customers, from identification to planning, change management and even testing after the changes are implemented. Remediation SLAs are aligned to the timelines required by Cyber Essentials Plus, making the service a huge help in achieving the CE+ standard.
The outcomes
Reduced vulnerabilities, reduced attack surface
Data from Broadacres’ vulnerability trend report, after having the service live for three months, shows:
- High-risk vulnerabilities reduced by 61%
- Medium-risk vulnerabilities reduced by 71%
- Low-risk vulnerabilities reduced by 92%
Steve said: “We’ve reduced the likelihood of a breach, which means we’re doing a better job of protecting our employees, our customers and the whole organisation."
Money saved vs full-time staff member
Steve estimates that VDR is only a quarter of the cost of hiring a full-time staff member to manage vulnerabilities. A significant saving and an investment that the board was comfortable to sign off on, when weighed up against the cost of a data breach.
Time freed up to deliver on projects
As Steve says, VDR enables the Broadacres IT department to dedicate multiple additional days each week to their key strategic projects, which are critical to achieving the organisation’s vision of becoming the best rural housing association in the country.
Steve’s final verdict
“Using VDR is honestly a no-brainer for us. It's a good service, at a good price, and it does the job it’s supposed to do in the timeframes it’s supposed to do them.
“LIMA are doing a cracking job. They keep in touch, our account manager is good and the security analysts are always on hand. They're easy to get in touch with if we need them.
“I've been in this job for around 30 years, and you don’t always feel these services are delivering the full value they promise. This one does, and it’s a refreshing change.”
