CHL Mortgages are a bespoke mortgage loan provider based in the UK. With over 30 years’ experience in the industry, CHL Mortgages are the go-to lender for many landlords, limited companies and HMO/MUFB customers across the country. They currently service over 30,000 buy-to-let and residential owner-occupied loans, managing £6.5bn across several different asset classes.

CHL Mortgages were using several legacy security solutions to protect their IT infrastructure, but these were ineffective and sometimes difficult for their small team to manage. When CHL Mortgages were acquired by a new parent company, this accelerated the need to transform their security posture and ensure every corner of their estate was protected.

Bytes' Security Engineers worked closely with CHL Mortgages to understand their existing security situation, future objectives and specific business requirements. They established that CHL Mortgages required greater endpoint protection and an updated antivirus, as well as solutions to complement further adoption of cloud services. Bytes also identified a need for increased support around threat detection across the network and infrastructure.

Using their technical expertise and knowledge of the security market, Bytes recommended adopting a blend of advanced solutions and managed services. This strategy would ensure the best defence against modern threats and remove the burden of managing security for the IT team.

CHL Mortgages adopted the following solutions:

• Thales STA – accelerates cloud adoption with user access controls such as SSO and MFA
• Check Point Firewalls – industry-leading firewalls for greater endpoint security
• CrowdStrike Falcon – advanced next-gen antivirus offering complete threat prevention
• Forcepoint Web Gateway – intelligent protection from web and cloud-based threats

The Bytes team installed and configured each solution, providing specialist support for Check Point and Forcepoint with rapid response and remedial assistance. For ongoing support, Bytes also deployed their Managed Services. These services are delivered by Bytes’ security experts and provide 24x7 monitoring of the company’s infrastructure.

Bytes provided the following Managed Services:

• Managed SIEM (Security Incident Event Management) to analyse log data for potential threats
• Managed SOC (Security Operations Centre) for appropriate threat response 
• Managed VMaaS (Vulnerability Management as a Service) to detect and fix vulnerabilities.

With help from Bytes, CHL Mortgages gained leading-edge solutions and services to transform their security posture. This new approach protects the entire business from modern threats and accelerates cloud adoption, which will ultimately increase growth. Bytes' Managed Services will also allow for further innovation, enabling the IT team to focus on other projects, instead of being concerned with security.

Bytes are now the go-to technology partner for CHL Mortgages, adding value when strategic decisions need to be made and support whenever they need it.