SecurEd launched to deliver Higher and Further Education with sector-specific cyber defences

Glasgow, UK – September 12, 2025 – With thegovernment’s 2025 Cyber Security Breaches Survey revealing that 85% of colleges and 91% of universities have suffered cyber attacks in the past year, Acumen Cyber, a CREST accredited cyber security service provider, today announced the launch of SecureEd, a new service to protect the Higher and Further Education sector from sophisticated cyber threats.

SecurEd is a purpose-built managed Security Operations Centre (SOC) service, created by Acumen, in collaboration with HEFESTIS, which delivers enterprise-grade cyber defences to Higher and Further Education tailored to the specific needs of the sector.

Sitting at the intersection of knowledge, innovation and collaboration, the Higher and Further Education sector is uniquely exposed. Its open, accessible environments, which are supported by EdTech platforms, research partnerships and cloud providers, create multiple entry points for attackers. Meanwhile, the constant influx of students, staff and contractors every year makes access management and endpoint security increasingly complex, leaving institutions facing a perfect storm of rising threats, compliance pressures and limited funding and resources.

SecurEd has been established to specifically tackle these challenges. The service offers organisations continuous monitoring, proactive threat hunting and decisive response across their entire technology stack, with pricing on a per-staff/faculty basis and student accounts are included for free. This means costs remain completely transparent, allowing institutions to budget with confidence, while knowing security coverage is never compromised, regardless of data volume.

“SecurEd has been created to protect the complex and diverse environments of universities and colleges,” said Mark Robertson, CEO at Acumen Cyber. “Over the past year we’ve worked closely with the sector, building partnerships with a number of institutions including West Lothian College, Edinburgh Napier University, Heriot-Watt University and Ayrshire College. Their insights have helped us design a service that removes the unpredictability of cost, eases the pressure on internal teams and delivers the enterprise-level protection the sector needs.”

Acumen Cyber is also committed to strengthening the Higher and Further Education community – not only by defending institutions via the SecurEd service, but by helping nurture the next generation of cyber security talent. This will be achieved through graduate recruitment schemes, academic engagement, where SecurEd’s team will host guest lectures, as well as supporting academic projects and PhD research.