Russell Group University —
Cyber Transformation

The Challenge

Research-intensive universities face a distinctive threat landscape. The combination of valuable intellectual property, open research culture, complex federated IT, and significant cloud spend creates an environment where traditional security models struggle. This Russell Group university had grown its Azure and Microsoft 365 estate to over £2 million in annual spend — but without the security architecture, access controls, or governance structures to match.

The organisation had no formal Design Authority function, meaning technology decisions were being made in silos without consistent security standards. Endpoint protection was fragmented, privileged access was poorly governed, web traffic lacked policy-based controls, and identity and access management had not kept pace with the university's cloud adoption. At the same time, a 7 petabyte+ research data estate presented significant challenges around classification, retention, and lifecycle management — a problem that would only compound as data volumes grew.

Leadership recognised that the organisation needed senior architectural leadership — someone who could operate at both a strategic and a technical level, hold authority across IT functions, and drive a programme of genuine security transformation rather than point solutions.

What We Did

Magma Cloud provided the programme architecture and Design Authority leadership for a multi-million-pound cyber transformation. We established and chaired the Design Authority — the function responsible for reviewing all significant technology decisions, enforcing security standards, and ensuring that new capabilities were built on consistent, secure foundations.

Across the core security controls, we led the design and delivery of four major capability deployments:

• EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) — consolidated endpoint protection across the university's diverse device estate, providing continuous monitoring and rapid response capability
• PAM (Privileged Access Management) — establishing just-in-time and just-enough access controls for administrative accounts, eliminating persistent privileged sessions that represented a significant breach risk
• SWG (Secure Web Gateway) — implementing policy-based web traffic inspection and control, protecting users regardless of network location
• IDAM (Identity and Access Management) — rationalising identity management across the university's hybrid environment, aligning joiners/movers/leavers processes with security controls and governance requirements

In parallel, we conducted a comprehensive review of the university's Azure and Microsoft 365 spend — identifying significant optimisation opportunities that reduced the overall cloud cost by over £2 million without reducing capability. Savings were reinvested into the transformation programme.

We also authored the 7 PB+ data lifecycle strategy — defining classification tiers, retention policies, access controls, and deletion procedures for the university's entire research data estate. This gave the institution a defensible, proportionate approach to data governance and set clear expectations for how sensitive research data should be handled across its lifecycle.

Outcomes

• Multi-million-pound cyber transformation delivered on time and within budget
• Design Authority established, chaired, and embedded — giving the university a persistent governance function for technology decisions
• EDR, PAM, SWG and IDAM deployed across the estate, materially reducing the attack surface
• Azure and Microsoft 365 spend optimised — over £2 million identified and redirected into the transformation programme
• 7 PB+ data lifecycle strategy authored and adopted, providing a defensible framework for research data governance
• Security posture improved across all major control domains, with measurable reduction in unmanaged risk

Services Used