Cybersecurity · Education

Managed IT and security for a preschool and childcare provider

A childcare provider holds family records and children's information — a high security bar on a budget that isn't. intSignal delivered enterprise controls at a workable cost, with everything earning its place.

The problem

Family and children's personal records with minimal protection.

What we did

Full and complete IT support.

The outcome

NaaS and FWaaS removed network and firewall hardware purchases.

The challenge

What the business was up against

Family and children's personal records with minimal protection. No internal IT, with staff focused on care rather than systems. Aging network equipment and no central management. Phishing and credential exposure risk across staff accounts.

From exposed to fully monitored

7

security controls now in place, correlated and monitored around the clock — up from none.

  • SIEM
  • XDR
  • EDR
  • FWaaS
  • SD-WAN
  • Dark-web monitoring
  • Password manager

The approach

What intSignal did

Full and complete IT support. Cybersecurity and compliance: SIEM, XDR, EDR, FWaaS, SD-WAN. Microsoft 365, password manager, dark-web monitoring. NaaS and UCaaS.

The thinking

Why we did it this way

A childcare provider holds data as sensitive as any enterprise, on a budget that isn't. Every control had to earn its place, so we chose an integrated stack delivered as a service — enterprise-grade protection at MSP-scale licensing — rather than enterprise products at enterprise prices. One provider owning the whole thing is also what makes the economics work: there's no room in a childcare budget for vendor sprawl.

Why it works

One vendor, accountable

The bigger lesson underneath the numbers is about accountability. Spread the same scope across a dozen small vendors — one for the firewall, one for email, one for the phones, one for each site — and every incident becomes a conference call where nobody is responsible and everybody points sideways. Consolidating to one provider ends that: a single team owns the outcome, a single number gets called, and the systems are unified rather than bolted together at the seams. It also changes the incentives. A large managed engagement is a serious relationship for the provider — real revenue, real stakes — so the provider has every reason to keep it healthy, where a small vendor with a small contract simply doesn't. You stop being one of a hundred accounts spread thin and become the account that matters.

Built to hold up

Resilience and risk

SIEM, XDR, and EDR protecting systems holding family records. Dark-web monitoring and a password manager for credential risk. FWaaS and SD-WAN for a managed, consistent perimeter. Compliance controls appropriate to the data they hold.

24/7
Watching family and child records
0
IT staff on a childcare budget
0
Network hardware owned

What changed

DimensionBeforeAfter intSignal
Family / child recordsMinimal protection24/7 detection
Credential riskOpenMonitored + managed
PerimeterAgeing hardwareFWaaS + SD-WAN
IT functionNoneFully managed

Outcome

The result

Systems holding family records are covered by SIEM, XDR and EDR, credential risk is closed with dark-web monitoring and a password manager, and the perimeter is managed on FWaaS and SD-WAN. Enterprise-grade protection with no internal IT hire and no owned network hardware.

One provider across IT, security, network, and phones. Managed support avoided any internal IT hire. Bundled tooling delivered enterprise controls at a workable cost.

How these figures were derived

Effort and outcomes are reconstructed from production systems of record — ticket histories, call detail records, dispatch and SOC/NOC telemetry — read end to end rather than sampled. Cost comparisons are indexed to a baseline, never a fee or rate. Where a figure is modelled rather than measured it is labelled as such, and the model is documented and available to defend on request.

Who was this for?

Customer

A preschool & childcare provider

Confidential by contract.

Facing something similar?

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