Making the UK safer
“one council at a time”

Published on 18/05/21 | Written by Victoria Arnstein, Editor of Transform Magazine

Several councils which secured a place on our proof-of-concept trial for the cyber security solution AppGuard have gone on to procure the technology at a preferential rate.

One representative from a council in the Midlands said: “While we’re just a few months into the partnership, it is clear AppGuard offers us full protection against increasingly sophisticated cyber- attacks so we can, with confidence, deliver our ambitious transformation programme for staff and residents.”

Dr Andrew Larner, iESE’s Chief Executive, said iESE teamed up with Assurity Systems Ltd, the European distributor of AppGuard, to bring the transformational technology to the UK’s local government environment after undertaking a worldwide search for cyber security technology which met the needs of the changing digital world and how local government services are delivered.

The iESE White Paper, Digital local public services: the path to an effective digital and technology strategy for local government, mapped out the future of the community from the use of drones through to electric roads. This, in turn, outlined the what the future of local government would look like.

Realising that the ‘Internet of Things’ was going to have an “exponential explosion”, Dr Larner and his team set about finding a way to protect every digital device that might connect into a local authority network and pose a security risk. “What we realised was that there was great promise in that environment but also huge risk,” he explained, “Our concept is to make the UK the safest place to live, work and play one council at a time. AppGuard’s pre-exploit technology is totally different to what is currently on offer in the way it works, the outcomes it achieves and its ability to protect Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT). It is a generational leap in protection which is required for the generational leap in technology taking place,” he added.

The technology protects against malware attacks, even those known as zero-day (never-seen-before).
“At the moment if you are sensible, you have layers of protection, you throw up the best outer defence you can and then it is a bit like a medieval castle, you have rings of defence and then internally you separate spaces so if someone gets in, they can’t get anywhere else. Having those layers of protection is still sensible, but what AppGuard does is recreate that outer wall and that buys you time,” Dr Larner explained.

As an investor in the product, iESE has secured highly preferential rates with discounts exceeding 50 per cent for local authorities for a full managed solution, including licence fees. A server version also available and if you need extra monitoring and support, iESE has also secured preferential rates on Security Operation Centre (SOC) services.

Find out more about the changing nature of the cyber threats in the latest edition of Transform Magazine by clicking on the link below.