Valldata selects Alert Logic to secure payment platform

Valldata, the leading UK provider of outsourced donation processing and fulfilment for the UK non-profit market, has selected Alert Logic’s Security-as-a-Service solutions to secure and protect its substantial volumes of online transactions and sensitive customer data. The company has deployed Alert Logic Threat Manager with ActiveWatch and Alert Logic Log Manager with Log Review to meet its intrusion detection and auditing and compliance requirements.

It’s critical that those who donate to charity feel confident that their donations are secure and are being channelled to their chosen charities as quickly and securely as possible. The highest standards of data security and confidentiality are required and the industry is heavily regulated, which requires Valldata to operate within a number of different compliance mandates. In 2014, Valldata processed £130 million worth of donations; communicated with 4.5 million supporters; scanned 12 million documents and received 7 million pieces of mail.

“With such high volumes of financial and customer data and the ever changing threat landscape, we knew we needed specialised security expertise to protect our customers,” said Jonathan Sowler, Chief Technology Officer at Valldata. “Helping clients achieve a better ROI on their fundraising activities is paramount and handling huge transaction volumes while meeting compliance mandates is critical.”

Alert Logic protects critical financial data by providing a combination of threat intelligence, experienced security analysts and proprietary technology delivered as a 24x7 managed service. Valldata deployed Alert Logic products to continuously monitor its environment in order to identify, evaluate and mitigate security threats and potential attacks.

Valldata needed a security vendor that would ensure full PCI compliance and provide 24x7 security monitoring and log management without requiring the company to hire in-house security experts. “Hiring employees internally who can perform log analysis and security monitoring is expensive,” said Sowler. “Alert Logic provides the continuous security, compliance and analytics that we require, delivered in an innovative as-a-service model which is both highly effective and cost efficient.”

Valldata uses Alert Logic for threat detection and log management across its infrastructure, which is mainly on premises. The company ultimately plans to move some components of its IT infrastructure into the cloud. “The additional benefit we get with Alert Logic is that we can just extend the solution across our hybrid estate,” said Sowler.

“Alert Logic provides market-leading security solutions to some of the world’s most demanding enterprises, wherever their infrastructure resides – on premises, in the cloud or hybrid,” said David Howorth, Vice President of Alert Logic EMEA. “We enable Valldata to focus on its core business of processing payments knowing its network and customers’ data are secure.”