NHS Trust gets more value from Defender for Endpoint
Overview
Are you getting the most from your security solution? Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust tapped into expertise from Bytes. As a result, the Trust has deepened its understanding of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and sharpened its incident response capabilities.
Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust provides a range of community-based health services for around 456,000 adults and children in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, and beyond.
Services range from district nursing and health visiting to physiotherapy and specialist community clinics – with a total annual cost of around £73 million.
Challenge
Extra knowledge needed
The Trust benefits from Microsoft Defender for Endpoint as part of its NHS Shared Tenant. This collaborative platform created by Microsoft and the NHS provides a secure and reliable cloud-based infrastructure for health and social care organisations in the UK.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint helps Shropshire to prevent, detect and respond to any threats to its network, which is used by around 3,000 employees. Endpoints include laptops, phones, tablets, PCs, access points, routers, and firewalls.
The Trust’s IT team had already deployed and configured the core elements of Defender for Endpoint but wanted to understand the platform in greater detail and optimise its features.
We chose to work with Bytes because they listened to our needs and provided great technical help through the FastTrack sessions. As an IT Engineer for an NHS Trust, I can say we've seen big improvements in our use of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE), thanks to Gennaro's expertise from the FastTrack sessions. Gennaro's tailored support and proactive approach have been key in boosting our efficiency and confidence in using MDE. Overall, our experience with Bytes has been fantastic, and I highly recommend them to any organisation seeking excellent technical guidance and support.
The Bytes Solution
Deeper understanding gained
The Trust contacted Bytes for help, taking advantage of Microsoft FastTrack. This funding program provides technical resources, remote advice and guidance with workloads.
From the initial scoping session, Bytes could see the Trust was well advanced in its implementation and use of Defender for Endpoint. So, the Bytes specialists used the time to help the Trust’s IT team gain a deeper understanding of the platform, its policies and how to investigate incidents.
In particular, Bytes extended the Trust’s ability to manage devices that are isolated from the network because of a security risk from being unpatched – or due to any suspicious activity or infections. The Trust needed an easy way to gain overall visibility of all devices, rather than having to view each device’s page to check its status.
The Bytes team solved this challenge by creating a custom KQL query that would examine the status of all devices across the organisation – and report back which devices were in isolation. This saved time and simplified security for the IT team.
Benefits
Greater visibility and confidence
The Trust’s IT team now has a far deeper knowledge of Defender for Endpoint, thanks to know-how from Bytes and its Cloud Security Architect, Gennaro Migliaccio. This has boosted the Trust’s confidence in day-to-day security management as well as its ability to monitor potential threats and respond swiftly to any incidents.
Bytes’ work with the Trust extends beyond security. The team has also been helping Shropshire to get the most from Microsoft 365 Copilot, the AI-powered tool that can provide real-time intelligent assistance to NHS employees.
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