Case Study: Belfast Metropolitan College achieves ransomware and phishing protection with Barracuda Networks

Email security and backup keeps Northern Ireland’s largest college safe from the scourge of ransomware

Belfast Metropolitan College, Northern Ireland’s largest further and higher education college, needed to protect 20,000 students, 1,400 staff and 5,000 devices from data loss and cybercrime. The IT team faced frequent “missing” student files, limited Microsoft 365 retention and rising phishing and ransomware threats that put coursework, teaching materials and personal data at risk.

The college deployed Barracuda Email Protection and Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud Backup to add AI-driven phishing/impersonation defenses, advanced threat protection, and granular backup and point-in-time restore for Exchange, OneDrive, Teams and SharePoint. The combined solution blocked phishing and ransomware pathways, provided air‑gapped recoverable backups, delivered peace of mind for the IT team and helped the college avoid major incidents—so much so that staff have recommended the solution to other institutions.

Belfast Metropolitan College

Liam Downey

IT Operations Manager