Cyber Security Hive

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the monitoring, evaluation, and learning lead at Fairtrade Asia-Pacific, a nonprofit trade organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Cyber Security Hive?

Once we decided to have a separate office, we had to make investments on the IT front. We needed to ensure the systems were compliant with the local laws, the data production processes, and the data management processes that we have to set in place. 

At any point, some of our domains sometimes get hacked or phished. We have to have a vibrant system in place to ensure it doesn’t happen. When it did happen in 2019, we decided to hire someone to help us.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Cyber Security Hive understood our situation and how our systems were scattered in the beginning. The team knew what had to be done to bring them all under one umbrella and ensure that everything was in place. 

They helped our developer to fix the entire system, working through several iterations. The primary service they did was penetration testing and a couple of other tests. They helped us in installing antivirus software, which was very helpful. 

We currently have four or five projects running with them.

What is the team composition?

There are two main points of contact, including Akram (CEO & Co-Founder).

How did you come to work with Cyber Security Hive?

We shortlisted three organizations. Cyber Security Hive was the only team who was empathetic and had the competency. We had someone do the due diligence to see that they were really skilled and that their price quotes were reasonable compared to other security firms.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $2,000-$3,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2019 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The quality of their work is extremely high. We have frequent internal discussions on how to go forward, which we really appreciate. Our team members have all said the system has improved and their data is secure.

How did Cyber Security Hive perform from a project management standpoint?

I appreciate their timeliness. They’ve always exceeded expectations when it comes to deadlines. In fact, there have been instances when, because of our limited workforce, we were unable to keep up with their timeline. We had to put an express in order to keep up with them, which was encouraging for us and more reason for us to continue working with them on other projects.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a lot of ideas on what can be done to make us competitive. They went the extra mile to do added research to understand the local laws and come up with things we could incorporate into our systems.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When we first started working with them, they didn’t think we’d be very serious about the IT-related national laws. Once they realized that we were serious about it, they researched it.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re a really good, timely team.