Cheltenham based CDS Defence & Security (CDS DS) and North Tower Consulting (NTC) have established a strategic partnership to enable an innovative cyber security and information assurance (CS&IA) service. This service has been created to pull a large, diverse team of cyber security professionals together at a time when a global shortage of cyber security expertise is impacting the resilience of organisations in the UK and internationally.
Recognising the growing need for cyber expertise to be broad, flexible and innovative, our new CS&IA service is delivering a range of cyber security services to the public and private sectors. It also offers the essential cyber security skills, certifications and experience needed to support all organisations, large or small.
Martin Nash – Head of Cyber Security & Information Assurance Services at CDS DS explains:
“Cyber security is all about managing the risks to information. Working with the expertise CDS DS and NTC have established allows our clients to understand, manage and minimise their security risk more effectively. Our service-driven approach lets us take on the intricate management of establishing and maintaining a breadth of CS&IA expertise that our customers can benefit from without having to tackle the problem of a shortage of expertise themselves. Not only that, but our team of CS&IA experts are expected to routinely gain and maintain skills, experience and certifications – keeping them at the forefront of the latest cyber threats.
We are also working hard to diversify our teams. We have recruited cyber security apprentices and graduates who are being coached and mentored by the more senior members of the team. This ensures that we bring different perspectives, skills and knowledge to our customers while also upskilling and diversifying our fast-growing team of experts.”
What this means for our clients is that we can place the right CS&IA skills, experience and knowledge into the right place at the right time, with a network of experts to reach back to when needed. We ensure that we do not create a ‘single point of failure’ in knowledge for our customers that all too often occurs with a manpower substitution driven approach. Taking a service-based approach to providing cyber security expertise is a break away from the more traditional methods and allows us to enable consistent, broad, security risk-based, ‘secure by design’ approaches to support technology and business operations.”
Nick Pritchard, CEO of North Tower Consulting goes on to say
“NTC and CDS DS have been working together since mid-summer 2020 to grow a team of CS&IA professionals who have the broad range of experience, certifications and qualifications needed to deliver a CS&IA service that meets, sustains and often exceeds customer expectations. This adds breadth to NTC’s established technology services including life-cycle management, assurance and delivery management which combine with our CS&IA services to deliver true ‘secure by design’ solutions.”
CDS Defence & Security offers a range of CS&IA consultancy and services to the public and private sectors including defence and government organisations. This includes:
- Complex cyber security technology programme management, implementation, and operation with niche expertise in Insider Threat programmes and supporting technologies.
- CS&IA Risk & Governance services which enable risk-based digital and operational resilience for our customers.
- CS&IA Technical Assurance Services including Cyber Essentials (CE) and CE Plus certifications, Digital Forensics, Penetration Testing, Security Architecture and Incident Response & management.
- Integrated services across our broader business units which can combine all or some of our CS&IA, Support Engineering, Training and Learning Development and/or Operational Support services.
For more information on how we are working with organisations to provide qualified and experienced cyber resource, visit www.cdsds.uk or contact us on enquiries@cdsds.uk
2 minutes reading time
Author
