A Scottish cyber firm has launched a new security operations centre to protect the higher and further education sector from online harms.
Acumen Cyber, based in Glasgow, is spearheading the SecureED facility in association the technology support organisation for Scotland’s universities and colleges, HEFESTIS.
SecurEd is a purpose-built managed SOC service, which can be easily procured in a compliant way through sector-approved frameworks on a direct award basis.
It delivers enterprise-grade cyber defences to Higher and Further Education on a predictable, fixed price basis, tailored to the specific needs of the sector.
Unlike traditional SOCs that are priced on log ingestion, per-user fees or data volume, SecurEd provides per-staff/faculty pricing with free student accounts included. This means costs remain completely transparent, allowing institutions to budget with confidence, while knowing security coverage is never compromised, regardless of data volume.
The government’s 2025 Cyber Security Breaches Survey revealed that 85% of colleges and 91% of universities have suffered cyber attacks in the past year, which are levels comparable to the country’s largest enterprises. Yet, unlike other large organisations, universities and colleges often lack the resources and budgets to manage these escalating threats effectively.
“SecurEd has been created to protect the complex and diverse environments of universities and colleges,” said Mark Robertson, CEO at Acumen Cyber.
“Over the past year we’ve worked closely with the sector, building partnerships with a number of institutions, including West Lothian College, Edinburgh Napier University, Heriot-Watt University and Ayrshire College. Their insights have helped us design a service that removes the unpredictability of cost, eases the pressure on internal teams and delivers the enterprise-level protection the sector needs, with pricing that’s affordable and predictable.”
SecurEd delivers round-the-clock threat monitoring, detection and response as well as full access to Acumen’s expert security engineers. Their expertise in the education sector and wider threat landscape aims to ensure timely detection and mitigation of malicious activity, stopping attacks before they cause harm.
Acumen Cyber is also committed to strengthening the higher and further education community – not only by defending institutions via the SecurEd service, but by helping nurture the next generation of cyber security talent.
