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With an area covering almost 400,000 hectares encompassing a population of more than 1.5 million, and with 50 fire stations across 14 local authority areas, Essex has one of the largest County fire services in the UK. As such, it is necessary for ECFRS to safeguard sensitive data across its developing IT estate, especially as it continues to roll out a new Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, with individual log-in credentials for each of its fire fighters. Furthermore, the organisation is required to follow government regulations utilising Good Practice Guide no. 13 (GPG 13), which advocates all network traffic must be continuously monitored as a way of proactively identifying unusual or suspicious behaviour, in order to access the PSN.

Prior to deploying LogRhythm, ECFRS used a log management solution that struggled to provide network visibility across the organisation’s expanding IT infrastructure and would have required extensive configuration if it were to deliver the level of protective monitoring needed for GPG 13 compliance. As such, ECFRS assessed a number of SIEM solutions against the set criteria, and following an extensive evaluation process, the organisation chose LogRhythm for the platform’s intuitive nature, its advanced reporting suite, and its unique ability to easily demonstrate compliance with government frameworks upon deployment.

Chris Massie, ECFRS ICT Security Officer, said: “By deploying the platform, we have made significant progress in establishing GPG 13 aligned controls. LogRhythm and our reseller partner, IP Performance, ensured the deployment process was quick and efficient. This, coupled with the solution’s intuitive nature, has enabled us to make more progress in the first five days of deployment than we have over the past year using our previous log management tool.”

ECFRS is also utilising the LogRhythm solution to improve its IT security procedures and optimise its operational efficiency. Furthermore, the organisation is currently in the process of extending its headquarters, and going forward, it will use LogRhythm’s platform to ensure the secure and efficient operation of its new control room, from which all emergency requests and 999 calls to the Service are to be managed.

“We were looking to implement a solution that would enable the proactive management of our cyber security and IT operations, not just a platform that would tick a compliance box,” continued Massie. “We attend an average of 24,490 calls a year – and we’re increasingly dependent upon IT infrastructure to manage operations. Since deployment, LogRhythm’s solution has already enabled us to identify and respond to a number of operational issues, which has made the running of our service more seamless and efficient.”