The UK's No.1 bottled water brand, Highland Spring, has chosen to partner with Acumen Cyber to strengthen its cyber defences with 24/7 threat monitoring, investigation and response. The partnership will see our Glasgow-based security engineers work closely with Highland Spring's internal IT team, providing round-the-clock specialist support to help protect the business and its operations.
Founded in 1979 and headquartered in Blackford, Perthshire, Highland Spring Group is one of the UK's leading producers of natural source waters, bottling more than 600 million litres annually. With a strong reputation and a commitment to keeping its operations running reliably, cyber security plays an important role in protecting its people, systems and customers.
Building on existing security investments
Highland Spring has already invested heavily in its security technology, infrastructure and internal capabilities. However, maintaining continuous security monitoring while managing day-to-day IT operations and wider strategic projects places considerable demands on an internal team.
The business recognised an opportunity to strengthen its existing capabilities by bringing in additional specialist expertise, particularly outside normal working hours.
Working with Acumen will give Highland Spring access to experienced security engineers around the clock, helping its internal team gain greater visibility of security risks and dedicate more time to strengthening infrastructure, reducing vulnerabilities and developing its wider cyber security strategy.
Why Highland Spring chose Acumen
Following an extensive tender process, Highland Spring selected Acumen for our technical expertise, engineer-led approach and the breadth of our security operations platform.
Our CREST-accredited Security Operations Centre in Glasgow brings together security information and event management (SIEM), automation and threat intelligence to support continuous monitoring, investigation and response, alongside proactive threat hunting.
A key part of the partnership is the ability for Highland Spring's IT team to work directly with the engineers responsible for delivering its security service. This allows our team to build a detailed understanding of Highland Spring's environment, investigate potential threats and take responsibility for improving its defences.
Our approach to continuous security validation was another important factor. By regularly testing detection capabilities against real-world attack techniques, we can identify opportunities for improvement and provide evidence of how effectively security controls are working.
Highland Spring also valued our fixed, predictable pricing, which provides greater budget certainty as its security requirements develop.
A partnership built on collaboration
For Highland Spring, finding a security partner that could work closely with its existing team was a priority.
Tracy Holbein, Group IT Manager at Highland Spring Group, explained: "Keeping our operations running reliably is essential to Highland Spring. This partnership will give us round-the-clock specialist support and more time for our own team to focus on preventing problems and strengthening our security. Acumen stood out because of the rapport between our teams and their enthusiasm for working with us. That gave us confidence that we could build a close and productive partnership."
The relationship will allow Highland Spring to retain its internal expertise while benefiting from the additional capacity and specialist knowledge of Acumen's security engineers.
Mark Robertson, CEO of Acumen Cyber, commented: "We're delighted to be working with Highland Spring, a business that recognises the importance of investing in cyber security to protect its people, its operations and the trust its customers and partners place in it.
"Our role is to work as an extension of Highland Spring's team, with named security engineers who understand the business and take responsibility for strengthening its defences. That means continually improving protection as threats evolve and backing confidence with evidence. We continuously validate our detection capabilities against real-world attack techniques, using the findings to improve the security we deliver."
You can read more about the announcement on Intelligent CISO here: https://www.intelligentciso.com/2026/10/29/highland-spring-selects-acumen-cyber-for-24-7-managed-cybersecurity/