Safeguarding the most vulnerable people, and their data.

Brainkind, formerly The Disabilities Trust, works alongside people with an acquired brain injury to help them live as independently as possible. It is the largest not-for-profit brain injury service provider in the UK, supporting around 750 people a year.

With frontline care and daily contact with vulnerable adults, a data breach would be devastating. Facing a significant insider threat and a growing ransomware risk, Brainkind needed a total overhaul of its web and cloud application security. As a charity with a small IT team, it needed to do that quickly and cheaply.

The inside-out threat

When Graham Fisher joined as Director of Digital, user activity and privacy controls needed attention.

“The biggest threat for us is the insider threat. Inside out, not outside in. Whether that's leavers exfiltrating our IP or confidential patient information being unwittingly shared on public forums, the impact could be critical. Both reputationally, and for the people we support.”

“We need to carefully control which sites are used, and what apps our data flows across. Before TrustLayer we were trying to manage web filtering through very large, externally managed firewalls. It was complicated and far from agile. We needed to own and drive the filtering ourselves.”

Brainkind chose a security-as-a-service approach. “We're not security specialists. To buy endpoint products and implement them ourselves is expensive.” They wanted a UK business they could meet in person, and turned to Airnow Cybersecurity, who introduced them to TrustLayer.

Keep IT simple

“We wanted something effective and easy to deploy that would work straight out of the box. My mantra is keep IT simple and easy to consume.”

“We ran a demo, and within 20 minutes we had pushed it to the desktop with rule-based criteria and were applying standard rules. Within an hour we could start blocking risky web and cloud app activity. The account was up and running almost immediately.”

“There were no complex environments, we didn't need to get certified, and there was no complex training. As a busy IT team supporting over 1,000 employees, that was a major benefit. My engineers, who aren't security specialists, can use it confidently.”

Culture transformed, people protected

Browse now centrally manages web browsing and cloud application use across Brainkind.

“It's truly changed the culture for the better. We've moved from an open, easy-access, laid-back culture to being a self-conscious, secure organisation that is very aware of the implications of not protecting itself.”

Beyond blocking risky sites and preventing data exfiltration, Browse has cut unregulated procurement: only approved supplier sites and apps are reachable from inside the organisation. Granular reports let the team see the whole environment and find gaps.

“I now share the intelligence we get from our data quarterly with our audit and risk committee, right down to how many frontline staff are trying to access blocked sites, so we can quickly address any growing threats.”

Security isn't out of reach for charities

Many charities see enterprise-grade security as unaffordable and make do with less. Graham disagrees.

“TrustLayer showed us that high-quality security can be done affordably. Nobody should go without security. If you're in the situation we were, evaluate your core risks and get a solution in place. It doesn't have to cost the earth.”

“With this foundation in place, Brainkind can move forward digitally. We aspire to be at the cutting edge on brain injury support, and security is enabling us to progress. TrustLayer is a core element in our digital growth and innovation.”