Case Study

The Client

St Bede’s College is an independent, all-boys Catholic school in Melbourne, Victoria, operating across two campuses in Bentleigh East and Mentone and supporting approximately 1,900 students.

Challenges

Our Solution

Pressure to Reinforce Cyber Resilience

Advanced cyber security had become a growing concern for schools including St Bede’s College, with increasing expectations from leadership and the board to strengthen the school’s security posture. Deputy Principal for ICT and Infrastructure David Cracknell, who has been in the role for twenty years, and Network Manager Sean Keenaghan, who has worked at the College for nine years, were responsible for delivering improved outcomes without additional specialist resources.

The urgency was reinforced by real-world incidents affecting other local schools. As David explains:

“The effects on your school’s reputation are massive if you get breached. That’s a nightmare scenario in my position.”

To improve its cyber security posture, the College committed to implementing the concepts of the Essential Eight framework. However, its ICT Department quickly encountered a critical gap: there was no reliable way to detect whether a breach had occurred or to maintain continuous visibility across systems. This led the team to focus on Security Operations Centre (SOC) and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) capabilities to provide detection, monitoring, and response.

An initial attempt to run a SIEM internally proved unsustainable. Managing the platform added significant workload on top of day-to-day responsibilities, and there was no practical way to validate whether identified security gaps had been fully addressed.

Sean reflects:

“As cyber security has become more important over the last couple of years, we’re spending more and more time looking at logs and closing gaps. It was nearly a full time job to manage our own SIEM server – keeping it running, updating it, and checking it. It’s nearly impossible because we don’t have a full time, dedicated cyber security person. You’re trying to look at logs from so many different systems, it’s hard to sift through it all.”

Recognising that this approach was not sustainable, David and Sean began evaluating alternative SOC and SIEM providers. Cost and confidence quickly became the deciding factors, yet many options were priced beyond what was realistic for a College environment.

Selecting a SOC and SIEM Partner

David and Sean were first introduced to ThreatDefence through the education cyber security community. They encountered the ThreatDefence team at a national cyber security competition for schools, where the company was a sponsor and St Bede’s College had a team of students participating. They later reconnected at the EduTECH conference in Melbourne, at a time when the school was actively looking for stronger SOC and SIEM capabilities.

What stood out immediately was ThreatDefence’s broader, more practical approach to cyber security. Rather than offering isolated tools or bolt-on services, the focus was on delivering an end-to-end security operations capability that would genuinely support the school’s needs.

ThreatDefence differentiated itself through a consultative approach, with support included as part of the service rather than treated as an optional extra. This contrasted strongly with other providers the school had evaluated.

As David explains:

“All the other options sounded a bit cookie cutter, so you were just going to get the solution they provide. ThreatDefence said, they would have personalised meetings  to explain any alerts or actions taken. Other vendors seemed less attentive to our school’s individual needs. We felt more valued with Threat Defence.”

Another key factor was ThreatDefence’s ability to detect issues quickly and respond decisively.

“Their ability to discover risks and react quickly was a major factor in our decision to work with ThreatDefence. If our systems are breached, they can shut down any intrusion super fast. They also helped us to be proactive in our approach to cyber security.”

Finally, it was the team’s depth of experience and confidence that gave David and Sean assurance they were making the right decision.

David says:

“I’ve never experienced  a company that filled me with more confidence in their experience and ability than ThreatDefence. They are professional and focused on the job at hand. In the conversation, it was clear they are experts in their field.”

A Seamless Onboarding Process

When it came time to onboard the SecOps platform, the implementation was fast and low-impact, with the core capability deployed within a single day. This was a significant win for both the ICT team and the College, minimising disruption while delivering immediate value.

Reflecting on the experience, Sean says:

“It was very straightforward, and their documentation was brilliant, which is pretty rare. 90% of the onboarding was following very well written, easy to follow instructions. It was a simple process to get everything up and running.”

Beyond speed, ThreatDefence focused on ensuring the platform was fully integrated and functional within the school’s existing environment. Rather than limiting support based on predefined integrations, the team worked through unfamiliar systems to ensure coverage and visibility were maintained.

As Sean notes:

“Even at the start when we said we work with a system they weren’t familiar with; they said they were confident they could bring it on board. Everything we’ve asked for, they’ve found a way to integrate it.”

Measurable Outcomes and Ongoing Value

St Bede’s College has been working with ThreatDefence since 2024. Since implementing the SecOps platform, the College has achieved stronger security operations with deeper visibility, faster response to incidents, and reduced day-to-day operational strain on the ICT team.

Improved visibility across systems has enabled the school to identify and remediate security gaps that previously went unnoticed, reducing risk to both systems and sensitive data. 

Sean reflects:

“It’s great to have a system like this. They are proactive in identifying threats and vulnerabilities, and recommend improvements.”

David adds:

“Every time they report to us, they are hardening our cyber security defences and lessening our target size.”

A further benefit has been the consolidated dashboard, which brings together security data from across the environment and makes patterns and issues easier to identify.

“It’s pulling logs from so many different systems, so having a dashboard gives us much clearer visibility.” 

The College has also benefited from consistent access to rapid support and continuous monitoring. As David explains:

“ThreatDefence’s communication is excellent. We can get on the phone or send an email and get an instant response. That’s so important to us because schools get hit when IT is unavailable – such as Friday nights, on weekends, or on the holidays. Having a partner like that is invaluable, they’re there 24/7 monitoring what we can’t. It’s impossible in our job.”

Beyond technology, the working relationship has been a key differentiator. The ThreatDefence team’s approachability and willingness to explain complex issues clearly has built trust and confidence. 

Sean notes:

“There’s a lot of times in IT where you’ll be in a meeting where specialised terminology can be used. Some companies assume you are aware of all industry acronyms and jargon… you don’t experience that with ThreatDefence.”

This has been reinforced by ThreatDefence’s ability to communicate technical risks in practical, understandable terms. Recalling discussions with Zlatko, ThreatDefence’s Founder and CEO, 

David says:

“He’s very good at being able to explain complex cyber security concepts to a varied group of staff – his absolute experience, knowledge, and confidence shines through.”

That expertise has extended beyond day-to-day monitoring, with ThreatDefence also providing trusted advice across broader security decisions. As David notes:

“Zlatko provides experience and guidance over the development of our whole Cyber Security Framework.”

Rapid Response and Operational Assurance

The education sector is a constant target for cyber attacks, making incidents a question of when, not if. When a third-party system used by St Bede’s College and other Catholic schools experienced a cyber incident, David, Sean, and the IT team were able to respond calmly and confidently, knowing they had strong visibility and support through ThreatDefence.

David reflects:

“Using ThreatDefence gave us confidence we were well protected. They allowed us to be proactive and get in front of the threat.”

The team contacted ThreatDefence, shared the details of the incident, and requested heightened monitoring alongside a targeted dark web search for the school’s credentials. ThreatDefence responded quickly, providing a clear list of findings that the team was able to validate, confirming the issues had already been identified and addressed earlier.

Sean recalls:

“I sent them an email and 15 minutes later they rang me and said this is what we’re going to do – we’re going to do a full dark web scan, a vulnerability scan on this system, and report back. Half an hour later I got an email saying they’d checked all systems, and they gave us updates throughout the day including another phone call. It provided peace of mind.”

David adds:

“We really appreciate how quickly they reacted over a weekend, because they know every school gets targeted on a Friday night or the holidays.”

With clear evidence and timely support, David and Sean were able to reassure the Board, leadership, and the College community that St Bede’s College was well protected and that no data breach had occurred. Just as importantly, the incident reinforced confidence in their ability to respond effectively without disruption or panic.

As David concludes:

“As a College we’re always going to be a target, we’re just reducing that target to the smallest possible size – and that’s what we’ve done with ThreatDefence. The bottom line is, we have quick and reliable response, and we have a framework in place to deal with any incidents that happen.”

A Trusted Cyber Security Partner

By partnering with ThreatDefence, St Bede’s College has been able to reduce cyber security risk, provide strong support for the ICT team, and clearly demonstrate value to the Board and Leadership. The combination of effective technology, responsive support, and practical guidance has made cyber security both manageable and defensible from a governance perspective.

Based on their experience, both David and Sean are unequivocal in their recommendation.

David says:

“100% I would recommend ThreatDefence, and we’ve already done so with a number of schools. I haven’t found any of their services so far that I’d be unhappy with. Everything has been more than we expected, and we haven’t looked back. I say to people, IT Support in schools are the GPs of the IT world, we’re not specialists. We need a company like ThreatDefence to be able to be that specialist. While you’ve got plenty of consultants for general networking, cyber security is such a changing environment, you have to be constantly up to date with the ever evolving threat landscape. ThreatDefence provides the expertise and knowledge which gives me great confidence that we can respond quickly and effectively to any threat.”

Sean’s view is equally clear:

“We couldn’t be happier with the support, the usability, and the way the whole system functions. Everything.”