The Managed SOC Service for Higher and Further Education
Full Security Stack. Fixed Price. Full Protection. Built for Education.
In Collaboration with
Secure Ed Landing Page
Full Security Stack. Fixed Price. Full Protection. Built for Education.
The Higher and Further Education sector sits at the intersection of knowledge, innovation, and collaboration. But this very openness, coupled with constrained resources, makes it one of the most attractive and vulnerable sectors for cyber attackers today. Universities and Colleges face a perfect storm: escalating threats, compliance obligations, and limited budgets to address them.
From ransomware and credential theft to insider risks, the number and severity of attacks targeting the sector continues to increase.
Universities hold sensitive intellectual property in life sciences, defence, and emerging technology, making them attractive to state-sponsored groups and organised crime.
Universities hold sensitive intellectual property in life sciences, defence, and emerging technology, making them attractive to state-sponsored groups and organised crime.
Academic values of openness and accessibility often clash with security best practice, leaving exploitable entry points.
Every year brings waves of new students, staff, and contractors, complicating access management and endpoint hygiene.
Most institutions lack the budget or people to build an effective 24/7 Security Operations Centre. Attempts to do so often create single points of failure and coverage gaps.
GDPR, CAF, research IP protection, and increasing regulatory scrutiny add another layer of complexity.
Departments and researchers can adopt their own tools outside central IT oversight, creating blind spots and fragmented visibility.
Limited security teams, often stretched thin, struggle to detect and respond quickly enough to reduce impact.
SecurEd is a purpose-built managed Security Operations Centre (SOC) service, created by Acumen Cyber in collaboration with HEFESTIS, the not-for-profit shared services organisation supporting Higher and Further Education.
Together we have combined Acumen’s CREST-accredited, engineering-led SOC with HEFESTIS’ unique role as the customer’s voice, ensuring that SecurEd not only delivers operational excellence but also remains strategically aligned to the evolving priorities of universities and colleges.
This is a shared-service model with a difference: enterprise-grade cyber defence backed by collective sector insight, delivered in a way that is predictable, affordable, and tailored to the realities of Higher and Further Education.
Sector-specific threat intelligence enriched with real-world incident data from across the community and beyond.
Collective defence through shared insights that accelerate detection and response.
Joint service reviews driven by HEFESTIS to ensure continuous improvement and alignment with sector needs.
Fixed, predictable pricing – no hidden costs, no surprises. The result: the most comprehensive yet cost-effective managed SOC service available to Higher and Further Education institutions in the UK.
Most SOC providers in the market were built for a different world, and it shows. They struggle to meet the specific challenges of Higher and Further Education, where institutions need predictable costs, deep expertise, and a genuine security partnership. Alerts are pushed back to already stretched IT teams, outdated tiered-analyst structures slow response and dilute accountability and costs rise unpredictably, often at the very moment support is needed most.
Ingestion-based billing and per-user fees create financial uncertainty, forcing institutions to cut corners on coverage just to stay within budget.
Many providers deliver little more than SIEM management with basic alerting. They lack integrated threat intelligence, hyper-automation, and active response, leaving major gaps in protection.
Too often alerts are simply passed back to the customer instead of being owned through to resolution. Even worse, in a major incident, institutions are told to pay separately for an incident response retainer before real help arrives.
Tiered analyst structures (T1, T2, T3) create fragmented ownership and delayed response times, leading to inefficiency and higher risk.
SOCs that focus only on the HE/FE sector miss broader attack trends from other industries, losing vital context needed for early detection.
Customers are forced to raise tickets just to speak to someone. There is little access to senior engineers and no sense of real partnership or proactive guidance.
Default rules and signatures are left untouched, creating floods of false positives and missed correlations. Threat intelligence is often static, siloed, or not acted upon, reducing its real-world value.
Some providers lack true 24/7 coverage, leaving evenings, weekends, and holidays as high-risk windows.
Traditional SOCs are disconnected from compliance requirements, institutional governance processes, and the real-world pressures of academic organisations.
Designed specifically for Higher and Further Education, it is powered by engineers rather than tiered analysts, providing true end-to-end detection and response. Powered by engineers, not tiered analysts, it provides true end-to-end detection and response, enriched with world-class threat intelligence and supported by proprietary automation.
All features are included as standard, with fixed and predictable pricing that removes budget uncertainty. The result is comprehensive and affordable protection, genuine assurance, and a service model built around the realities of academic environments.
Budgeting is simple and transparent. Pricing is based on staff and faculty, with free student accounts included. There are no ingestion fees or hidden charges – just clear, predictable costs that give institutions control and confidence.
Our 24/7 UK-based, CREST-accredited SOC is led entirely by security engineers. Every incident is owned end to end, from detection through to resolution, eliminating handoffs, reducing delays, and delivering measurable outcomes with a partnership mindset.
A seamless combination of proprietary IP layered with market-leading technologies including Elastic SIEM, hyper-automation, Recorded Future threat intelligence, and best-in-class EDR from partners such as CrowdStrike and SentinelOne. Institutions can bring their own EDR or benefit from our established vendor partnerships.
Continuous monitoring, proactive threat hunting, and decisive response across the entire attack surface. We go beyond alerting to deliver real containment, recovery, and remediation.
Every institution has a direct relationship with a senior security engineer – no ticket queues, no delays, just expert guidance when it’s needed most.
Every alert is enriched with actionable context on adversary tactics, indicators of compromise, and emerging risks. Sector-specific intelligence is strengthened with cross-industry insights to keep defences ahead of evolving threats.
Full DFIR capability is built into the service at no extra cost. Unlike many providers, there is no need for a separate incident response retainer.
Integrated vulnerability scanning, prioritisation, and response help reduce exposure across endpoints, applications, and networks.
Whether institutions work to ISO 27001, NIST, CIS Controls, or GDPR obligations, SecurEd maps to the frameworks and reporting requirements already in place.
HEFESTIS-led service development workshops ensure that institutions directly shape the roadmap, keeping SecurEd aligned to the real-world challenges of IT and security teams.
Regular intelligence updates focus on HE/FE risks while incorporating broader cross-sector insights, helping institutions anticipate and prepare for emerging threats.
Available via approved procurement routes including Direct Award, enabling institutions to adopt quickly without complex tender processes.
Bottom line: SecurEd combines the depth of a specialist managed SOC service with the breadth of cross-sector intelligence and the predictability of fixed pricing. For Higher and Further Education, it is the only service designed to deliver the outcomes, partnership, and value the sector needs.
SecurEd isn’t just about protecting today’s Higher and Further Education institutions – it’s also about supporting the sector’s future by developing the next generation of cyber security professionals.
We will prioritise graduates when filling new cyber security roles, recognising the strength of talent developed within universities and colleges.
Our Glasgow-based 24/7 SOC will provide placement opportunities - full-time or part-time - giving students the chance to apply their learning in a live environment and develop practical skills.
Our senior engineers and leadership team will contribute wherever possible through guest lectures, mentoring, and support for academic projects, connecting sector research with frontline cyber operations.
With the appropriate safeguards in place, we will share anonymised datasets and security information from live operations to support PhD and other research initiatives, enriching both academic study an practical understanding.
By combining academic expertise with an engineering-led SOC, SecurEd strengthens the Higher and Further Education’s cyber ecosystem, enhances student employability, and drives innovation that benefits both the sector and the wider economy.
| Fully integrated full-stack security platform combining Acumen proprietary IP, Elastic SIEM, hyper-automation, threat intelligence, and market-leading EDR |
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| Choice of EDR: bring your own, or benefit from partnerships with CrowdStrike and SentinelOne |
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| Recorded Future threat intelligence fully integrate and operationalised |
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| Continuous vulnerability detection, prioritisation, and response |
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| Live service visibility through the Acumen Client Portal |
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| 24/7 UK-based, CREST-accredited SOC |
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| Engineer-led service (not tiered analysts) |
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| End-to-end response actions – not just alerts |
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| Full Digital Forensics & Incident Response (DFIR) at no extra cost |
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| Proactive threat hunting and real-time detection |
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| Dedicated named SOC Client Lead for every institution |
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| Tailored threat briefings for Higher and Further Education |
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| HEFESTIS-led collaboration to align with sector needs |
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| Cross-sector threat sharing for enhanced protection |
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| Quarterly business reviews and monthly service reports |
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| Fixed, predictable per-staff/faculty pricing with free student accounts |
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| No variable data ingestion fees |
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| Simple, compliant procurement via Direct Award |
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Ingestion-based billing and per-user fees create financial uncertainty, forcing institutions to cut corners on coverage just to stay within budget.
No lengthy negotiations. Contracts are built around Higher and Further Education needs.
From selection to go-live, deployment is streamlined to deliver protection rapidly, not months down the line.
For Higher and Further Education institutions, cyber defence is no longer just about tools – it is about outcomes. SecurEd delivers a 24/7 UK-based, CREST-accredited managed SOC designed specifically for the realities of academia.
Our model is engineering-led. Incidents are owned end to end, from detection through to recovery, eliminating the delays and context loss of tiered analyst handoffs. The result is faster response, stronger outcomes, and a service that feels like a true partner, not just another supplier.
And with fixed, predictable pricing, institutions have total confidence in what they will pay across the full contract term – no hidden costs, no surprises.
Ensuring SecurEd stays strategically aligned with Higher and Further Education needs.
Bringing proven approaches from other sectors to strengthen defences in academia.
From first alert to full recovery, without outsourced retainers or additional costs.
Correlating sector-specific and cross-sector insights for early warning on emerging attacks.
Supporting ISO 27001, NIST, CIS Controls and sector obligations around data protection and governance.
Engineering-led, with a named Client Lead for every institution.
Budget with certainty, without the hidden charges of ingestion-based models.
Standardised contracts and onboarding in weeks, not months.
Director of Information Services
Edinburgh Napier University
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