International digital marketing company We Are Rationale has a great team of creative colleagues with exceptional skills and experience. It’s therefore little wonder they were keen to extend their already impressive client portfolio to include UK government organisations. However, they first needed to secure Cyber Essentials accreditation to bid for these contracts – and who better to call on to support them through this process than the experts at Texaport?
With a presence in Edinburgh, London and New York, We Are Rational is focused on delivering brand relevance across its three service lines: define, articulate and amplify. The company’s team is comprised of digital brand marketing experts who are proactive, principled, smart, creative and a lot of fun with the focus on delivering exceptional strategically driven, creative work for their clients across the globe.
With strong credentials and a broad client base, We Are Rationale made a strategic decision to bid for contracts with UK government organisations. But before it was able to pursue these opportunities, the company needed to have Cyber Essentials accreditation in place.
Cyber Essentials is a simple but effective certification that guards a business or organisation against a wide range of common cyberattacks. Overseen by the National Cyber Security Centre and GCHQ, this standard is designed to provide base-level security controls for businesses of all sizes. Importantly for We Are Rationale, securing Cyber Essentials is a prerequisite for a company wishing to apply for government and public body tenders.
Adopting our usual bespoke approach in supporting a client through the Cyber Essentials qualification process, Texaport began by conducting a full cyber audit for We Are Rationale, producing a detailed report of all discrepancies. This gave a clear and comprehensive picture of the company’s cybersecurity risk profile and the issues that needed to be addressed in turn.
Along with its in-house team, We Are Rationale works alongside a wider network of associates and partners. To accommodate this approach, Texaport provided a bespoke IT management programme to encompass cybersecurity for both company-owned devices and those being brought into their premises on a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) basis by subcontractors. We also implemented a series of important business policies, including one that covered the use of BYODs for external subcontractors to follow.
Texaport then implemented a number of other key measures to support We Are Rationale’s Cyber Essentials journey. This included mail filtering to protect the company from malicious emails, including phishing attempts, and a cloud backup solution to safeguard important resources such as emails, Google Workspace files and all the company’s Mac computers to protect them against theft or data loss.
We then implemented anti-virus software to protect our client’s computers and important data from the threat of viruses. Meanwhile, multi-factor authentication was put in place to secure its data and protect against third party access and we instigated mobile device management (MDM) procedures to protect all devices connected to Google Workspace.
Texaport also installed a company-wide password manager to enable We Are Rationale to securely store its access codes and strengthen password hygiene across its operations.
Implementing all these key measures to achieve the Cyber Essentials standard was just the beginning of our thorough engagement. As part of our full IT management programme, we also deployed software that continuously audits and checks all computers for ongoing compliance with the accreditation.
As a Gold Standard IASME (Information Assurance for SMEs) and NCSC Cyber Essentials Plus accredited IT services provider, Texaport once again delivered a robust solution to support a client through the Cyber Essentials accreditation process.
The successful outcome of this project means that We Are Rationale has enhanced peace of mind about any potential threat to its systems and the security of its data. More importantly, the completion of the Cyber Essentials journey enables these creative experts to bid for UK Government contracts and further grow their global business.
At Texaport, we understand the importance of these advancements, and we work with our clients to put a reliable system in place to improve their business efficiency. Our team has a wide range of IT knowledge and remains acquainted with the movements in the IT industry. Find out more here.
