Case Study: Sightsavers strengthens cyber security and achieves Cyber Essentials certification with URM

Sightsavers - Customer Case Study

Sightsavers, an international development charity with staff across 30 countries, needed to meet Cyber Essentials certification after a 2017 requirement from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. It faced a major challenge in its distributed environment, especially around software updates, where patches were being installed manually by users and hardware support depended on engineers traveling from the UK. Sightsavers worked with URM Consulting, a Cyber Essentials certification body, to carry out a readiness assessment and map out the certification journey.

URM helped Sightsavers adopt a phased approach to certification and strengthen its overall security posture by standardizing laptops, centralizing endpoint management, deploying servers in remote offices, and moving to cloud-based antivirus. URM’s guidance also supported non-technical improvements such as a dedicated information security team, better joiners/leavers/movers processes, phishing exercises, and staff awareness training. As a result, Sightsavers improved endpoint security, automated patching across its global estate, reduced travel and IT admin costs, increased resilience for remote work during COVID-19, and gained a stronger base for compliance with PCI DSS and GDPR.

Sightsavers

Andrew Blackburn

Information Security Manager