THE COMPANY
A pension fund for major metropolitan police and fire departments collects contributions from employees who are working and disperses pension payments to retirees. This fund manages accounts for more than 5,000 employees and a similar number of retirees.
That adds up to more than 10,000 people whose personal information, including salary and pension information, is stored on the pension fund’s systems. To provide the best service for its members, the fund has a modern data network and an interactive website. But the organization consists of a small two- person IT team with neither having the sole focus or expertise around security.
THE NEED
The pension fund needed to be proactive in protecting against breaches and ransomware threats both for the sake of securing their infrastructure and customers’ data and for the opportunity to lower its own cyber insurance premiums.
While the need to be more proactive in protecting assets was broad, the fund had specifically identified needs to assess key aspects of their environment like firewalls and Active Directory configuration, formalize cybersecurity policy and establish a security awareness training program for its staff.
After investigating the available options, this municipal pension fund chose the vCISO service offered by LRS IT Solutions.
THE SOLUTION
LRS IT Solutions vCISO, or Virtual CISO, is a service that makes top-tier security experts available to organizations who need security expertise and guidance. Our team of experts have decades of experience building information security programs that work WITH business objectives and show measurable improvement to security posture.
Kirk Wilson is a Cybersecurity Architect for LRS IT Solutions. He’s the CISO assigned to the client and said the expertise of the technologists at the fund were outside security. “They lacked formalized policies and standards, they lacked some particular technical controls that were required, and wanted to bring in someone with experience in tying those things together,” Kirk explained.
The vCISO work began with a review of the fund’s existing security policies and creation of a security charter for the organization. From there, individual documents could be created, and controls enforced.
The LRS team assessed key aspects of pension fund’s network, identifying weaknesses and vulnerabilities and working with its technical team to remediate them. LRS vCISO resources regularly collaborated with the fund’s other partners as well. The team worked to align the environment with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) framework.
“Thanks to the work performed with LRS as our vCISO, our cyber insurance renewal was much improved.”
THE RESULT
The municipal police and fire pension fund now maintains a network that complies with security standards and has gained increased confidence in their security posture through ongoing assessments and remediation efforts. Their employees also receive annual network security awareness training conducted by LRS.
The fund also realized a financial benefit in the form of a 40% reduction in its cybersecurity insurance premium, along with an expansion of coverage, as a result of this engagement. “Thanks to the work performed with LRS as our vCISO, our cyber insurance renewal was much improved “ an IT manager at the fund said.” Not only in cost but also in the offerings we qualified for.”
The Virtual Chief Information Security Officer (vCISO) service provides a customer with an experienced, knowledgeable CISO to monitor the cybersecurity framework and provide updates and remediation as necessary. Several levels of vCISO service are available to meet the client’s security needs and budget considerations.
ACCOMPLISHED GOALS
The municipal police and fire pension fund accomplished its goals for protecting customers’ data.
The LRS vCISO solution helped the fund:
- Create a security charter
- Align the network environment with the NIST framework
- Reduce cybersecurity insurance premium
- Expand cybersecurity insurance coverage
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