Customer Story: Cafs (Child and Family Services, Ballarat Inc)
For Cafs, a safe community requires cyber security.
Customer
Cafs (Child and Family Services, Ballarat Inc)
Industry
Not For Profit
Solutions
Cyber Security
The Challenge
Not all data breaches are created equal.
As an independent community service organisation, Cafs (Child and Family Services, Ballarat) supports more than 6,500 clients across regional Victoria every year. The team delivers more than 50 services to vulnerable people when they need it most — including housing and homelessness services, family violence intervention programs and early childhood support.
With such high stakes, Cafs cannot afford the impact of compromised data. “Given the nature of what Cafs does, much of the information we store is very sensitive,” said Chris.
“People trust us with that information, and a breach could have very serious consequences for individuals and families. … For Cafs, it would mean a significant loss of trust and reputation in the community, and we simply can’t afford that.” said Chris
Like many organisations, Cafs accelerated digital transformation during COVID, creating urgency to ensure cyber security could keep pace. “Being cyber resilient to protect people today is one of our key strategic items… but you need to have the right foundations to support all the data, and they need to be secure.” said Chris.
Sensitive client data
Protecting information tied to vulnerable people is mission critical.
Evolving threat landscape
Not-for-profits face increasing cyber risk as attacks become more frequent and sophisticated.
Specialist capability gap
Access to dedicated cyber expertise was needed without building a full in-house function.
Secure digital transformation
Digital acceleration required stronger foundations and resilience.
“Cafs is a trusted advisor to vulnerable people in our
community, and we have a 24/7 mission critical mandate.
We simply can’t risk any sort of breach or attack, so
investment in security is non-negotiable.”
Chris Hunter
Cyber Security & Infrastructure Specialist at Cafs
The Solution
A trusted managed security partnership.
For Chris, building a full cyber function internally was never realistic.
“We have a small ICT team, so we rely on external partners to help deliver certain functions and capabilities, particularly when specialist skill sets are involved,” said Chris.
Chris began researching Security Operations Centre (SOC) and SIEM services, and Macquarie Cloud Services emerged as one of Australia’s leading Microsoft Security partners. With Cafs consolidating investment in the Microsoft ecosystem, strong expertise in Microsoft security tools was essential, alongside flexibility and understanding of the NFP environment.
“Most importantly, the team at Macquarie Cloud Services took the time to understand our business and requirements as an NFP, which other providers didn’t really bother to do. … They were also willing to be really flexible in the commercial arrangements, helping us to make the business case with key stakeholders and get the investment over the line,” said Chris.
24/7 monitoring, threat intelligence and Microsoft-native protection delivered peace of mind.
Key Results
Peace of mind, visibility and real-time protection
Peace of mind has been the most valuable outcome for Cafs since partnering with Macquarie Cloud Services. “The Cyber Threat Intelligence Platform correlates over 40 feeds, which gives us access to advanced threat intelligence…” he said.
From onboarding, Cafs gained real-time visibility and rapid detection. “Right from the time we were onboarded, we’ve seen real-time alerts and captures of real events within five minutes.”
Dashboards also helped Chris communicate security posture clearly to leadership. “The reporting dashboards have really helped me speak the right language to the Cafs leadership team and board…”
And operationally, the burden on the small ICT team was reduced.“Finally, from a personal perspective, I’m no longer overwhelmed… because I trust the team to manage it.” Chris Hunter, Cyber Security & Infrastructure Specialist at Cafs
Real-time threat alerts
Security events were detected and surfaced within minutes.
Board-level visibility
Dashboards supported clearer communication of risk and outcomes.
24/7 SOC support
Round-the-clock monitoring improved confidence and coverage.
Reduced operational burden
Internal teams were freed from manual alert management.
NFP-aligned partnership
Flexible engagement supported Cafs’ operating environment and budget.
Improved security posture
A stronger Microsoft-native foundation enabled long-term resilience.
Technical Solution Overview
Azure migration, networking modernisation and SIEM monitoring.
- A cutting-edge Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) platform, equipped with extensive real-time threat detection capabilities.
- Implementation of Azure Sentinel following best practices, complete with an extensive repository of analytical rules and supporting automation playbooks.
- Valuable guidance and policy recommendations to enhance cost-effectiveness and overall value proposition.
- Robust operational and executive dashboards offering complete, real-time access to event and monitoring data.
- Round-the-clock availability of security analysts for mission critical detection and response and continuous governance and strategic support.
- Streamline Cafs tooling to leverage the full potential of Microsoft’s Extended Detection and Response (XDR) capabilities unlocking the inherent synergies with Azure Sentinel. Included establishing a cohesive set of security tools and governance, as well as facilitating the implementation of a Zero Trust reference architecture throughout the entire ecosystem.
“With the support of Macquarie Cloud Services, Cafs is not
only highly secure – we’ve also unlocked a level of agility
and flexibility, as well as freeing up our focus as an IT team
to do what we do best.”
Chris Hunter
Cyber Security & Infrastructure Specialist at Cafs
How Macquarie Cloud Services helped Cafs.
Learn how the support of Macquarie Cloud Services unlocked a level of agility and flexibility to Cafs, as well as freeing up their focus as an IT team.
Contact us
Talk to an expert.
- 1800 004 943
- Level 15 2 Market Street, Sydney, NSW, Australia