Interview with Business Chief Magazine Asia

10.08.2020 In the latest edition of Business Chief Magazine Tim Kirk, Founder & CEO of SureCity Networks talks to Editorial Director Matt High about our role in assisting DuluxGroup with their Digital Transformation.

Read the full interview here https://www.businesschief.asia/technology/surecity-networks-delivering-secure-digital-transformation

Tim Kirk, CEO and Founder of SureCity Networks, discusses cyber and network security in the age of digital transformation and the company’s work with DuluxGroup.

The digital transformation of enterprises, driven by innovative technologies, the shift to broader and more complex networks and migration to the public cloud shows little sign of slowing. And while that transformation brings numerous benefits it also brings greater complexity and a potentially heightened threat landscape. As a result, network and cyber security plays a crucial role in enabling such a transformation.

“Digital transformation isn’t a new phenomenon,” says Tim Kirk, Managing Director of SureCity Networks. “But, while that transformation journey has been happening for some years, more recently there’s been a noticeable increase in organisations pushing towards the public cloud and a dilution of the classic network perimeter.”

This shift, says Kirk, has brought significant change to the traditional threat landscape for organisations such as DuluxGroup. “The risk exposure now is very different,” he explains. “As a result of that push towards the public cloud, companies are realising they have a greater number of assets that are publicly facing and which, as a consequence, could be at risk. Our challenge is to secure those environments in an agile and creative way that doesn’t hold up their business processes and delivers a best-in-class solution.”

SureCity Networks does this for companies across several sectors, including Dulux Group. The business specialises in network and cyber security, delivering it across three core areas of consultancy, managed or hosted services and cyber security products. In working with partners, SureCity Networks limits attackers abilities to move throughout Networks and Systems. They are able to set themselves apart by being a true, vendor and solution agnostic company.

The company has been working with DuluxGroup for more than two years, transitioning over that period from initial work around the public cloud to a far closer relationship. “For any organisation, the crucial aspect is that digital transformation means speed and agility, of course, but the key thing is to do that while maintaining optimal security at all times,” says Kirk.

“When we started working with DuluxGroup, the scope of work initially involved helping them with consultancy work,” he continues. “This included securing their journey to the public cloud and a next generation firewall security assessment. As part of the latter, we delivered analysis, a report and recommendations, and it was really the depth of that work that cemented the partnership and saw it develop into a full managed services solution. Essentially, that means we operate their networks, manage all of their next generation firewalls and consult on digital transformation strategies around moving workloads to the public cloud so as to enable a faster and more effective route to market for products.”

According to Kirk, SureCity Networks brings several key advantages to DuluxGroup and other partners:

• Context: what do alerts, notifications and data mean to the business?
• Visibility: full visibility over the entire network for planning, capacity and detecting threats that could be harmful.
• Automation: a core aspect of an organisation’s ability to respond to threats that are automated in nature, so, ‘fighting machines with machines’ so that automated attacks can be combated with a similar response.

The latter, Kirk explains, is becoming increasingly important. “The reality is that the bad guys don’t switch on and hack you between nine and five – it’s a 24-hour consistent threat. Our job is to ensure that DuluxGroup’s security keeps pace with its development, and so we work hard to ensure a platform is in place that self learns and self configures to block any attack that occurs, and at any time.”

Naturally, such an approach requires a close relationship – something that Kirk reiterates is a key ingredient of SureCity Networks’ success. “We’ve been really fortunate to work with DuluxGroup in particular for several reasons,” he states. “As a partner, they are one of few that work really closely with us to give insight into things like long-term strategies and vision. As an example, they have a regular internal convention for partners and suppliers that is solely focused on future plans and vision. From our perspective, it’s a great way of helping us to align with the strategy and deliver the best possible outcome that we can.”