NCC Group partners with HEAnet to provide cyber security services to HEAnet’s clients

NCC Group has announced a cyber security partnership with HEAnet – Ireland’s National Education and Research Network – to provide 24/7 security information and event management (SIEM) and security operation centre (SOC) services to HEAnet’s clients in the Irish education and research sector, over the next three years with the option to extend for another 7 years.

The services will be delivered by Fox-IT, part of NCC Group, from their Security Operations Center in Delft, The Netherlands.

With the core services SOC/SIEM, HEAnet clients will have real-time 24/7 security monitoring available, which will help to protect them from cyber threats and malicious activities. Besides the core service, Fox-IT will also provide optional add-on services such as incident response, security training and purple teaming to HEAnet clients.

Fox-IT started a similar service in The Netherlands two years ago, through a partnership with HEAnet's Dutch counterpart, SURF. The experiences of that partnership have been leveraged in full to ensure that the Irish education and research sector will receive the latest high quality cyber security services to increase cyber security for students and staff.

Kevin Jonkers, Director Managed Services at Fox-IT, said: “After the launch of SURFsoc this is another forward-thinking example of how industry-wide bodies, individual institutions and security vendors can work together to improve the resilience of entire sectors and we are proud to be providing our expert services in support of this mission.

“This combination of ongoing  knowledge-sharing  and  24/7  threat intelligence-gathering  is a model that  will  not only  increase the resilience of  individual  educational  institutions, but  will  be at the forefront of educational security around the world in the years to come.” 

Ronan Byrne, CEO at HEAnet, said: “We are delighted to partner with Fox-IT in offering an extended range of cyber security services to HEAnet clients. Fox-IT have an impressive track record in this field, and we look forward to building an effective partnership with them over the coming years.”

“Security is one of our stated strategic pillars, which recognises a pressing client demand for services that defend against the relentless waves of cyber-attacks that they experience daily. The provision of a sectoral SOC & SIEM services will assist our clients in reducing cyber risks and associated business interruptions.”