Customer experience provider Kura has appointed Acumen Cyber to provide 24/7 security monitoring, threat detection and incident response across its operations in the UK and South Africa.

Kura supports more than 50 brands across financial services, utilities, healthcare and the public sector, operating from Glasgow, Sunderland and Durban. The company handles millions of customer interactions each year, making the protection of client and customer information a key priority.

The partnership comes as Kura continues to modernise its technology estate and invest in its wider technology capabilities, including the development of omnichannel software subsidiary Inisoft.

24/7 monitoring from Acumen Cyber

Under the partnership, Acumen Cyber will provide round-the-clock monitoring from its CREST-accredited Security Operations Centre (SOC).

Kura will gain access to Acumen’s engineering-led defence model, which combines security engineers, threat intelligence and automation to identify and respond to threats.

Rather than simply generating alerts for customers to investigate, Acumen’s security engineers work directly with organisations and take ownership of investigations from start to finish. Its approach also includes continuously testing security detections against real-world attack techniques to identify areas where defences need to improve.

For Kura, this will provide greater visibility across its technology estate and specialist support should suspicious activity or a cyber incident be detected.

Protecting customer trust

Mark Robertson, CEO of Acumen Cyber, said cybersecurity is particularly important for organisations responsible for handling large volumes of customer information.

“For organisations like Kura, cyber security is about far more than protecting systems. It is about protecting the trust customers place in them,” Robertson said.

“Businesses handling sensitive customer information need confidence, backed by evidence, that their security is effective and threats can be identified and contained quickly.”

Robertson added that Acumen will work as an extension of Kura’s existing team, with named engineers who understand its business and continually test and strengthen its protection.

Supporting Kura’s long-term growth

The investment in cybersecurity also reflects the requirements Kura faces when working with clients operating in highly regulated industries, where demonstrating effective security controls is increasingly important.

Owen Campbell, CEO of Kura, said maintaining customer and client trust was central to the decision.

“Our clients place enormous trust in us to deliver outstanding customer experiences while protecting the information they entrust to us,” Campbell said.

“As our business continues to evolve, investing in cyber security is an essential part of maintaining that trust.”

He added that Acumen Cyber’s combination of specialist security engineers and a collaborative approach made it the right partner to support Kura’s security operations and longer-term growth.

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Cybersecurity has become one of the most defining business challenges of recent times. Organisations have invested heavily in protecting their networks, securing cloud environments and strengthening identity and access management. At the same time, organisations are under increasing pressure to prove they are handling sensitive information securely, not just storing it safely but protecting it throughout its journey.

Yet despite this progress, one area continues to receive far less attention than it deserves: how data is shared.

Most organisations have become very good at protecting data while it is stored. Files are encrypted, key handling is properly managed, access is restricted and systems are monitored around the clock. However, once that information needs to leave the organisation, whether it’s being sent to a customer, supplier, auditor or business partner, the controls often become less robust.

Every day, organisations exchange contracts, financial information, employee records, legal documents and commercially sensitive files. More often than not, this happens via email attachments or cloud-based file-sharing services because they are familiar and convenient. The problem is that convenience does not always equal security.

Email remains one of the most common routes for cyber attacks. Phishing, spoofed domains, malicious attachments and business email compromise continue to account for a significant proportion of successful breaches. However, most incidents do not involve a sophisticated bad actor. The official UK annual Cyber Security Breaches Survey continues to show the majority of incidents stem from everyday mistakes.  An email sent to the wrong recipient, an attachment forwarded outside the organisation or a file shared with overly broad permissions can expose sensitive information in seconds.

Human error remains one of the biggest cyber risks organisations face, particularly as businesses become increasingly connected. Information now flows constantly between employees, customers, suppliers, consultants and regulators. Every transfer creates another opportunity for something to go wrong.

What is often overlooked is that securing data is not just about protecting where it is stored. It is also about understanding the journey it takes.

Many organisations assume that because they operate in the UK, their sensitive information remains within UK borders. In reality, emails and attachments may be routed through multiple countries and cloud infrastructures before arriving at their destination. While this is often an invisible part of modern digital communications, it raises important questions around governance, compliance and data sovereignty.

For organisations operating in regulated sectors, this matters. Financial services firms, local authorities, healthcare providers and legal organisations are increasingly expected to demonstrate not only that data is protected, but also that it is managed responsibly throughout its entire lifecycle. Knowing where information is stored is only part of the picture. Understanding where it travels, who has access to it and how it is controlled has become equally important.

This is why conversations around geofencing and data sovereignty are gaining momentum. Rather than simply encrypting information and hoping for the best, organisations are beginning to ask whether they should have greater control over where sensitive data is permitted to travel. If businesses routinely place restrictions on the movement of physical assets, it seems only logical that they should apply similar thinking to digital information.

At the same time, regulators and auditors are asking more searching questions about how organisations exchange information with third parties. They want to understand how access is controlled, whether there is a complete audit trail and what safeguards exist once information leaves the organisation. These are no longer technical questions reserved for IT teams. They are governance issues that increasingly involve compliance, procurement, risk and senior leadership.

There is also a growing disconnect between the way organisations work and the security controls they have in place. Hybrid working, cloud collaboration and increasingly complex supply chains mean information rarely stays within a single organisation. Yet many businesses continue to rely on processes that were designed for a very different way of working.

This is where a change in mindset is needed.

Cybersecurity should not end when a document is saved securely on a server or in the cloud. Information is often at its most vulnerable when it is moving between people, organisations and systems. Protecting data in transit should therefore be considered just as important as protecting data at rest.

That does not mean making it harder for employees to do their jobs. Quite the opposite. Security should support the way people work, allowing information to be shared safely without creating unnecessary barriers or encouraging workarounds that introduce even greater risk.

Organisations need to take a more holistic view of information security. Protecting sensitive data means understanding its entire lifecycle, from creation and storage through to sharing, collaboration and eventual deletion. It means knowing not only who can access information, but where that information is travelling and whether that journey aligns with the organisation’s security, compliance and governance obligations.

Threats aren’t standing still, and neither are regulators. Focusing only on data that’s sitting in storage means missing one of the biggest holes in your security. It’s not enough to just lock data away; it needs to stay safe wherever it travels.

*DOQEX provides a secure data exchange and email gateway platform that helps businesses protect confidential information.

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