AcronymIT’s Managed Security as a Service provides small and medium sized government agencies a unique Endpoint Privilege Management solution to manage cyber risk. The AcronymIT service enables agencies to address key elements of the Australian Signals Directorate’s (ASD) Essential 8 and the Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF)

Challenge

The timely detection of cyber-attacks, especially where there is a risk that sensitive and classified information could be stolen, is critical.

Keeping on top of the requirements to protect their organisation from cyber threats is particularly challenging for small and medium sized organisations.

The shortage of cyber security expertise and resources, implementation of the ‘right’ solution and constant cyber risk identification and management is costly and resource intensive.

Using AUCloud’s sovereign cloud IaaS provides us cost efficiencies, the ability to scale as required and peace of mind that we are backed by a securely hosted solution. From a technical and logistics perspective, signing up to AUCloud and getting connected to their IaaS was quick and seamless, we (and our clients) benefit from their excellent support and transparency of their pricing model.

Peter Faulhaber
Director Services & Cyber Security, AcronymIT

Solution

With their Endpoint Privilege Management (EPM), Managed Security as a Service (MSaaS) hosted on AUCloud’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), AcronymIT provides a flexible, cost effective way for small and medium sized government agencies to manage privileges at the endpoint. Using the industry leading CyberArk EPM, AcronymIT’s MSaaS controls the access of privileged and non-privileged users to applications and operating systems, including:

Implementation of Least Privilege

  • Remove local admin rights from users to reduce the attack surface and mitigate critical vulnerabilities
  • Elevate privilege on-demand for authorised applications
  • Segregate admin duties on Windows Servers to isolate privilege by need

Application Control

  • Automatically block malicious applications from running
  • Greylist unknown applications to run in restricted mode
  • Protect against the unknown using the Application Risk Analysis service

Credential Theft Protection

  • Detect and block suspected credential theft attempts
  • Protect OS, Browser and file cache credential stores
  • Contain attacker to the endpoint and limit lateral movement

Hosted in AUCloud’s IRAP certified cloud environment, AcronymIT’s MSaaS guarantees the highest level of security assurance to their clients. As a sovereign IaaS provider, all the services and data managed by AUCloud remain in Australia, providing both AcronymIT and their clients, confidence that theirs is a securely hosted Service.

Outcomes

The AcronymIT EPM MSaaS enables small and medium sized government agencies to comply with the (ASD) Essential 8 mitigation strategies. Implementation of the strategies makes it significantly more difficult for government systems to be compromised – and ultimately, more cost effective than responding to a large-scale cyber incident.

Using AcronymIT’s EPM MSaaS on AUCloud’s cloud IaaS, ensures small and medium sized government agencies can be confident their systems, data and employees are ‘cyber protected’ with the added value of sovereign protection in Australia.

The AcronymIT MSaaS solution is a sophisticated and, importantly, cost effective way for smaller agencies to meet their Essential 8 requirements. It is an ideal example of how AUCloud can provide cost efficiencies that partners, such as AcronymIT can pass on to their clients as well as the benefits of sovereign data protection with the scale, automation and elasticity typically associated with global cloud offerings.

Phil Dawson
Managing Director, AUCloud

Benefits

Alignment with five of the ASD Essential 8 mitigation strategies

  • Restrict administrative privileges
  • Application Whitelisting
  • Disable untrusted Microsoft Office macros
  • User application hardening
  • Multi-factor authentication (support and integration)

Sovereign protection of services and data in Australia

Rapid deployment and scalability on demand

Price transparency

AcronymIT Managed Security as a Service (MSaaS)

Starter Plan

Spacing

N/A

Expandable RAM

Fixed Memory – 1GB

Memory Cache

512 MB

Number of Visits

15000

SSL Certificate

N/A

CDN

N/A

Priority Support

SLA – 48 hours

AUCloud: Keeping the data of Australians in Australia