NCC Group wins MDR deal worth over EUR 25m to secure university systems across the Netherlands

NCC Group has today announced a partnership with SURF – the IT cooperative for education and research across the Netherlands – to provide 24/7 security incident and event management (SIEM) and security operation centre (SOC) services over the next five years.

NCC Group’s Fox-IT specialist team in Delft will provide the 24/7 SIEM and SOC services in support of SURFsoc, a new security operations service launched by SURF. SURFsoc is dedicated to securing and continuously monitoring the systems of all of its member institutions.

With the help of the Fox-IT team, SURFsoc will also provide universities and other educational institutions with access to ongoing security expertise and threat management, while up-to-date threat intelligence-gathering will enable greater collaboration between institutions and allow the SURF team to notify members of new threats.

The launch of SURF’s new security operations centre was expedited by the ransomware attack on Maastricht University over Christmas 2019, which led to a loss of access to university systems and backups.  Twenty-three universities have already signed up, with more already showing interest.

 With an integrated, collaborative alert system, and ongoing monitoring,  SURFsoc  aims to provide institutions with the knowledge they need to build stronger defences and quickly respond to evolving threats. 

Inge Bryan, managing director for  NCC Group in Europe, said: “SURFsoc  is a forward-thinking example of how industry-wide bodies, individual institutions and security teams 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.” 

 Hans  Louwhoff, COO at SURF, said: “As a cooperative, we have seen demand building. We have pooled the wishes of the entire education and research sector, explored the possibilities and have established a service that is relevant to all members.  SURFsoc  is a wonderful example of this."

 Michiel Borgers, CIO of Maastricht University and chairman of the steering committee on behalf of the universities, added:  "Cooperation and knowledge sharing are important pillars in all aspects of education and research, as well as in the field of cybersecurity. In  SURFsoc, these two  pillars are  therefore firmly entrenched. We are proud to have achieved this a year after the incident at Maastricht University."