Celebrating our Security Heritage

As a founder of Intercity Managed Services, Ian Jackson, our Chief Commercial Officer, reflects on our proud security heritage, which has been providing managed security services to commercial businesses, public and third sector organisations for over 14 years. Ian also talks about how Touch Secure is set to transform the cloud in 2019.

Back in 2007 a somewhat younger version of myself was asked:

“How did Intercity Managed Services become so pivotal to the security strategy of our central government?”

Our story began when the division was founded in 2004 as a systems integrator with a focus on security and an intent to shape the compliance landscape. We positioned ourselves as a trusted partner, with a passion for customer focus and we earned a reputation for doing things differently in an agile way.

This agility began to pay dividends.

We delivered our first Firewall Perimeter Managed Service in 2005. This was followed by rapid growth in our capability and reputation, which lead to our appointment by the Cabinet Office to design and support the implementation of its ‘Government Connect’ Secure Connectivity Programme.

This was just the start. We became participating members of the government’s Security Council and were engaged to complete technical trials of secure public sector infrastructure across London. We were advisors to the Department for Work and Pensions on its initiative to connect securely to all 388 local authorities in England and Wales and we provided a ‘technical first’ hardened home working solution for the government’s Electronic Delivery Team in Warrington.

On reflection, we had indeed become pivotal to the security strategy of our central government, but we didn’t stop there, acquiring more customers from the commercial and third sector. Each customer’s unique data security requirements drove the pace of our development, engaging our Professional Services Team to advise in areas such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and information security management (ISO 27001).

Intercity Managed Services has continued to demonstrate the capability to develop innovative products and services whilst remaining up to date with the prevailing cyber security threats. We have successfully developed and taken to market a range of secure, cloud-based solutions including: Internet perimeter, URL filtering and proxy services; secure email hygiene; remote access with two-factor authentication; video conferencing; and complex resilient ‘landing zone’ solutions.

We have wrapped all of these within the assured Managed Service capability of our in-house ISO 27000 certified, 24/7 Intercity Secure Operations Centre (ISOC).

This is the base from which we are taking the next steps in the development of our Managed Services portfolio. Ever since we deployed the first ‘landing zones’ our customers have shown an interest in the concept of Security as a Service, with flexible capacity and features available to secure Internet access, cloud computing, email and remote users. Touch Secure is our response, combining our security service experience and pedigree in one simple market proposition.

It is the next chapter in our proud security heritage and I for one am immensely proud of the capability we now bring to the cloud.

In 2019, we will be delivering Touch Secure directly and via the government’s Digital Marketplace G-Cloud 10 Framework. We have delivered it to many of our commercial and third-sector customers already and naturally, we use it to protect our own network and users, keeping our critical applications and data secure.

Learn more about Touch Secure and the ways Intercity is pushing the boundaries of traditional network security.