Transforming Security Operations for East Suffolk Council
East Suffolk Council needed greater visibility, confidence, and value from its security operations. By partnering with Nomios, the council replaced a “black box” SOC with a transparent, risk-aligned managed SOC service that reduced noise, improved threat detection, and delivered security operations that truly supported the business.
The challenge
East Suffolk Council were struggling with their Managed SOC provider, describing the service as a “black box” – lacking transparency, business alignment, and measurable value.
The most prevalent pain point of the service was the high volume of false positives, distracting an already busy IT team. Alerts lacked context, were time consuming to investigate, and were compounded by the lack of engagement such as service reviews.
East Suffolk Council were also hindered by ingestion caps which meant limiting telemetry from key security controls such as firewalls and web gateways. This restricted crucial security visibility and context.
Ultimately, the organisation needed a SOC provider that could offer greater continuity, clearer understanding of their environment, and a more mature, efficient security operating model.
Nomios' unique Managed SOC approach
Unlike a traditional SOC provider, Nomios’ managed SOC focuses first on understanding the customer’s risks, business priorities, and technical environment. This insight enables prioritisation of risk coverage and control of ‘Time-To-Detect’ for serious threats. SOC capabilities delivered:
Discovery & risk assessments
- Detailed mapping of critical assets, business processes, historic incidents, and associated risks.
Prioritised risk coverage
- SOC activities aligned to the customer’s most critical risks to meaningfully reduce Time-to-Detect.
Use case definition
- Relevant use cases selected and tailored using the Nomios library, including MITRE-aligned detections.
Proactive deception techniques
- Honeypots and canary tokens deployed to lure attackers, detect stealthy activity, and provide early warning.
Dedicated analyst team
- UK-based SOC analysts embedded as an extension of the IT function, ensuring consistency and reducing handoff friction.
Continuous improvement cycle
- Regular tuning, gap analysis, and refinement of detections to maintain high-quality coverage as threats evolve.
The outcome
As a result of Nomios’ purposefully curated onboarding, East Suffolk Council have seen a substantial uplift in their managed SOC experience. This includes strategic log ingestion which has enabled full visibility across log sources despite the ingestion caps with no added costs. False positives have been dramatically reduced and replaced with high-fidelity, context rich alerts enriched by automation.
The Nomios automation-first approach has enabled faster detection and response by leveraging automated playbooks. Meanwhile, proactive protection techniques, via deception technologies (e.g. honeypots and canary tokens), have given confidence against stealthy attacks.
MITRE ATT&CK heat maps are being used to proactively guide maturity, shape the security roadmap, and identify potential detection gaps.
I’ve been absolutely blown away by the level of engagement, expertise, and genuine partnership from the Nomios SOC team.
Mark Cole, Infrastructure & Operations Manager, East Suffolk Council
Customer impact
East Suffolk Council have gone from feeling unsupported and “in the dark” to having a transparent SOC partner that truly works as an extension of the team. With Nomios, East Suffolk Council gained measurable improvements, including:
- Confidence that real threats would be prioritised and detected quickly.
- A partner that understood their environment and business risks.
- Proactive defences beyond traditional log monitoring.
- Assurance that their SOC team was an extension of their IT organisation.
About East Suffolk Council
East Suffolk Council is a local government authority responsible for serving the communities within the East Suffolk area. It delivers a wide range of public services including housing, planning, environmental health, waste management, social care, and community development to meet the needs of residents, businesses and local organisations. East Suffolk Council works to support local infrastructure, services and long-term regional development.
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