Rehab Group

Rehab Group delivers essential services to people with disabilities, including individuals who are particularly vulnerable. Protecting their personal data and maintaining the availability of the systems supporting those services are critical responsibilities. Cybersecurity therefore needed to address more than technical visibility. The organisation had to consider resilience, continuity and the consequences of disruption for people who depend on its services every day. Maintaining appropriate protection across its systems was a priority for its small internal team.

At the outset, Rehab Group was working with ten or 11 different partners. Managing these relationships made it difficult to determine whether the organisation was using all its security tools correctly and getting the most value from each provider. This fragmented approach created uncertainty around the effectiveness of existing arrangements. With limited internal resources, the team also needed more than support delivered through telephone calls or ticketing systems. It needed a partner that could work closely with its existing staff.

Rehab Group moved from managing ten or 11 partners to working with <strong>Smarttech247 as a single point of contact for its cybersecurity requirements. For its small internal team, this simplified the management of security relationships and provided a more coordinated approach to protection. Derek Hickey describes the change as making a massive difference. Smarttech247's Microsoft Security partnership also helped bring the existing security arrangements together, reducing the complexity Rehab Group had experienced when dealing with multiple providers.

Smarttech247 now supports monitoring, investigation and response within Rehab Group's own environment, operating as an extension of its internal team. Vision Xtend provides a central view of security posture and supports real-time risk visibility and prioritisation. Threat intelligence is used to strengthen visibility and support defence against cyberattacks. The engagement extends across networks, endpoints, applications, people and data. For Rehab Group, the value lies in having a security partner closely involved in its operations, helping the organisation remain focused on delivering essential services to people with disabilities.

The engagement is built around close collaboration with Rehab Group's existing technology team. Rather than operating as a separate function, Smarttech247 works within the customer's environment to monitor, investigate and respond to security activity. The partnership combines Microsoft Security capabilities, Vision Xtend and threat intelligence to support risk management and operational continuity.

For Derek Hickey, the relationship matters because Rehab Group has a small internal team and needs direct, practical support. The priority is having a partner that understands the organisation's responsibilities and works alongside its people. We have a very small team. It's important for us that when we have a partner, they become an extension of the team.