Security should be a priority for every business – and especially small and medium businesses who are often more easily targeted.

In recent years, the cyber security landscape has become more complicated. Businesses now find themselves facing increased regulation, a rising volume of cyber attacks and hybrid working environment. All of these have meant traditional security practices are no longer up to scratch.

As a result, many businesses currently fail to meet IT security standards. This leaves them at substantial risk. Many are also left with a patchwork of disparate IT solutions, obtained over years, that no longer provide return on investment.

Infinity Group’s Innovation Lab wanted to end this with a solution that makes IT compliance accessible, even for smaller businesses, and provided ongoing value. That’s why they created Secure Core.

We explore what Secure Core is, why we built it and how it serves businesses.

Why did we create Secure Core?

Cyber crime is more prevalent. The UK Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2024 found that half of all businesses were the target of cyber attacks last year, up from 32% the year before.

In our experience, we’ve found that smaller businesses often don’t realise how vulnerable they are to cyber crime until it happens. It’s often associated with larger businesses, but smaller organisations are seen as easy wins to criminals. There’s a higher chance of success as their protections tend to be less sophisticated.

Moreover, business leaders often don’t realise what is their responsibility when it comes to IT security. They buy anti-virus protection and tools that promise security, and think they’re done. However, this still leaves weak points. Businesses need connected strategies and solutions to ensure everything is watertight.

Due to the strain of cyber security on businesses, many work with service providers to gain the solutions required to ensure compliance. However, many of these providers make recommendations based on the tools that drive their revenue streams but aren’t necessarily best for the customer. We saw this as a clear gap in the market.

Tom Lovell, Chief Technology Officer at Infinity Group, said: “We wanted to create something that added value irrespective of the impact on our revenue. We’ve moved away from technologies we feel isn’t serving our clients best, so we can make recommendations that truly drive reward”.

Secure Core was created to ensure businesses had the best tools and software to protect themselves against cyber risk. It bundles together the security must-haves that every company needs to meet IT compliance requirements, with regular servicing and updates from Infinity Group.

As a result, they can rest easy knowing compliance and security is taken care of, without any unnecessary strain on their resources or budget. Using Secure Core, we can also meet our duty of care to our clients by taking a proactive approach to their security risks.

How does Secure Core work?

Secure Core is designed for businesses requiring protection across up to 300 users.

It’s compromised of the leading security software from Microsoft, including:

• Entra (to manage identify and network access)
• Defender for Business (protecting your business against ransomware, malware and other cyber threats)
• Defender for Office 365 (filtering emails for phishing, spam and other threats)
• Intune (for endpoint management across your business devices)

Using Microsoft’s solution and our own security services, Secure Core contains extensive functionality to protect you across a range of areas. This includes:

• Multi-factor authentication, so only authorised users can get into your systems
• Cloud-based data protection, ensuring your network is safe even with users working remotely across different locations
• Standardised devices policy to ensure every business device is encrypted, up to date, configured correctly and completely compliant
• Advanced email verification
• Automatic blocking of dangerous sites
• Data backup and recovery, in case of any data loss
• Filtering of all business email to identify and protect against spam, phishing, weaponised documents and impersonation
• Antivirus, antimalware and firewall protection across your network
• Alerts for suspicious activity, such as when forwarding email rules are set up to external emails
• Turning off anonymous calendar sharing, so criminals can’t track movement
• Proactive monitoring of any potential threats

We also deliver twice-yearly updates, in line with Microsoft’s Security Wave updates. This means you constantly benefit from the latest technology and innovation.

In short, it covers all your base security needs, with our management to alleviate the internal burden. Tom explains: “Secure Core closes the skills gap facing many businesses. We’ve defined best practice when it comes to security, so business leaders don’t need to worry about working it out on minimal resource. We’ve done the research, we’ve put the time in and we invest in keeping it up to date, so your business doesn’t have to.”

What benefits can businesses get from Secure Core?

Given the scope of Secure Core, businesses can benefit greatly.

The primary benefit is stronger protection across your IT network. Using the software and policies included in Secure Core, you can meet well-regarded industry standards including:

• The government’s Cyber Essentials certification
• The CIS Controls framework
• ISO27001

By meeting these standards, businesses can be confident that they’re protected against ongoing risk. It’s also a great mark of trust to customers and partners, who know their data is less likely to be breached.

Secure Core also contains everything most businesses need to be fully compliant. However, if you work in more heavily regulated industries (like financial services), there may be additional provisions you wish to take.

Another significant benefit of Secure Core is its higher tenant security score. Where many IT security providers aim for a benchmark between 30 and 50%, we aim for at least 70%. This means your business will gain greater protection, drastically reducing the risk faced.

As Secure Core covers your security needs, it also means everything is wrapped up into consolidated solution. There’s no need for multiple software licences, allowing you to offset costs while accessing premium support. It also reduces effort and overheads associated with managing multiple suppliers.

It also takes away the internal burden of IT compliance and security, allowing you to benefit from constant coverage without having to recruit and retain resource.

Boost your IT compliance with Secure Core_

IT compliance is no longer an issue you can afford to ignore. As cyber crime increases, small and medium sized organisations find themselves at a higher risk of attacks that affect their finances, reputation and productivity.

With Secure Core, you can gain the confidence of compliance without the stress. You’ll be protected against a range of modern risks, which in turn enables you to safeguard customers, staff and stakeholders.

Find out more about Secure Core and get in touch with our security experts here.