Steps for housing associations to protect themselves while providing digital services to tenants.

1. BUILDING SECURE
DIGITAL SERVICES
Manchester, 22nd October
Dave Beesley
Technical Director
NetDef

2. Agenda
 Evaluating IT infrastructure and processes to meet the needs
of a rapidly changing sector.
 Planning a robust infrastructure on which to build secure
digital services.
 Answering the security questions posed by regulatory
compliance requirements.

3. What are digital services?
External Internal
• Digital inclusion solutions
• Rent payments
• Access to tenant facilities
• Telemedicine
• CRM solutions for
tenant management
• Agile working systems
• Data sharing amongst
apps

4. × Access
× Skills
× Motivation
× Trust
Over a third of
these are in
social housing
Why?
Digital Exclusion
~20% of population
not using digital
services

5. Security considerations
• Tenants feeling unsafe online/cyber-crime
• Mitigated by training/help with getting online
• https://www.cyberstreetwise.com/
• https://www.getsafeonline.org/
• Mitigated by technology
• Gateway level security software
• Access to security software
• Potential reputational damage
• Tenants accessing illegal material
• AUP and monitoring/controls
• Cost of implementation of security
• Assurance/testing/compliance/management

6. Current IT Infrastructure
What does the
business require?
• SLAs
• Capacity
How are projects
developed with the
business?
Cyber risk on
corporate risk
register?
Business continuity
and disaster recovery
plans?
Evaluation & asset management

7. Planning for future developments
Agility & flexibility
of infrastructure
Speed of execution
for new projects
Cloud versus
on-premise or hybrid
Security
considerations
baked into projects
 Saves money
 Reduces risk

8. Compliance considerations
Testing/assurance
Safe Harbour EU ruling –
important for cloud
PCI/Data
Protection/ISO27001
Ensuring reputational
integrity
Which standards are
relevant?
Who to turn to for advice?

9. Our approach
Prevent
Detect
Respond

10. NetDef projects
Regenda Group
• Disaster Recovery
and Business
Continuity Strategy
Guinness
Partnership
• Security
infrastructure
Auditing Services
NDA
• Security Auditing for
Compliance
Recent examples of consultancy work in
housing associations

11. Your to do list
Security risk assessment – risk register
Capacity planning and/or evaluation of future needs
Testing/security assessment for compliance
Business continuity and disaster recovery planning
Asset Management

12. Thank you
Dave Beesley,
Managing Director, NetDef