UK cybersecurity services firm, Bridewell, has announced the opening of its new 24/7 Security Operations Centre (SOC) in Wales. The company’s largest investment in property to date, the state-of-the-art SOC will provide rapid identification and response to threats while laying the foundations for sustained cybersecurity excellence for generations to come.
Run by a team of over 50 experienced, industry-certified consultants, the new SOC provides Bridewell with a fivefold increase in capacity, allowing the company to scale in line with rapidly expanding client needs. Both CREST and SOC 2 accredited, the SOC is available as either a fully outsourced or hybrid model, providing organisations with proactive identification and response to cyberthreats via 24/7/365 threat intelligence, incident response and managed detection and response (MDR).
The SOC forms a critical part of Bridewell’s links with Welsh cybersecurity communities and educational partners, including Cyber Colleges Cymru, a government initiative that creates pathways into a career in cyber for Sixth Form College students and the University of South Wales. Bridewell partners with the University for both internship and apprenticeship programmes, with students embarking on a development plan to build the essential skills needed to run a modern, agile and responsive SOC, under the guidance of experienced Bridewell analysts.
Designed with sustainability and staff wellbeing in mind, the new SOC caters for all styles of working and is powered entirely by renewable energy, supporting the company’s ongoing sustainability efforts since becoming carbon negative last year.
“The new SOC provides significant scale and capability to ensure we can continue to provide our clients a leading managed detection and response service,” said Anthony Young, Co-CEO at Bridewell. “It will also support Bridewell’s growth in developing much-needed skills across offensive, defensive and threat intelligence domains.
“What’s more, our commitment to developing skills across wider cybercommunities will see our experienced professionals helping to shape the next generation of young cyber-talent. Our SOC will bring people and communities together in a collaborative and sustainable space where cyberskills can flourish.”
Demand for managed security services is surging across the UK as organisations continue to grapple with the cybersecurity skills shortage. Recent Bridewell research reveals nearly a third (31%) of cyber decision-makers in critical national infrastructure organisations don’t have the skills to run a modern SOC and over two-thirds say it has become harder to recruit the right resources to secure and monitor their systems over the past 12 months.
The opening comes amidst a sustained period of large-scale growth for Bridewell, with a 100% increase in SOC analysts in the last year alone. The company recently announced an expansion to the US with a new office in Houston, Texas and is currently hiring 10-12 cyber-experts a month, with headcount set to double in the next 12 months.
Bridewell is also set to open a leading-edge forensic lab within the SOC next year. This will enable the company to dive deeper into its digital forensics capability, further strengthening its position at the front lines in the fight against cybercrime.
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