Case Studies
How NordStellar helps TMT stop dark web threats for SME customers
For over 30 years, Tailor Made Technologies (TMT) has been a trusted Managed Service Provider (MSP) for UK-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). With a team of 115 staff, they offer a full suite of IT, telephony, connectivity, AI automation, and cybersecurity services to clients with offices across the UK, Europe, and globally.
When the post-COVID shift to remote work exposed their clients to new vulnerabilities, the company sought a specialized threat intelligence solution. They chose NordStellar to detect dark web threats proactively, which allows them to identify risks for their clients and strengthen customer trust through clear, actionable reports.
The challenge: Post-COVID security demands for SMEs
Before the pandemic, many SMEs viewed basic antivirus software as sufficient cybersecurity. However, the rise of remote work expanded their networks, creating new vulnerabilities that hackers quickly exploited. This created a pressing need for more advanced protection.
Tailor Made Technologies recognized a gap in the market. Their SME clients, particularly those in data-sensitive sectors like legal and education, needed higher levels of data protection but lacked the budgets for enterprise solutions. Sam McCarthy, Sales and Account Management Director at Tailor Made Technologies, recalls:
"There was an outcry from organizations, especially in the legal or education sector, for enhanced data protection. As a technology partner, we have a dual responsibility: to respond to customer needs and inform them about current threats”.
The challenge was finding a solution that offered enterprise-level features at a commercially viable price for the SME market. The decision wasn’t easy and required thorough testing of various solutions, but NordStellar met all their requirements. As Sam noted, the pivotal selling point was NordStellar's ability to provide an enterprise-grade solution for SMEs.
How NordStellar helped Tailor Made Technologies
The company’s Internal Security Operations Center (SOC) conducted a thorough due diligence process to find the right partner. NordStellar stood out as the clear choice, fitting the company’s portfolio of offering best-of-breed technologies tailored for SMEs.
The implementation allowed Tailor Made Technologies to address a critical blind spot for their clients: the dark web. Since adopting the solution, they have seen a tenfold increase in the amount of SME data appearing on the dark web, as hackers accelerated their targeting of UK businesses post-COVID.
"If a customer was compromised through data found on the dark web, the first question they might ask is, 'How and why has this happened!?' It was those types of questions that drove us to find NordStellar."
Observing this accelerating trend of data exposure, it became clear that a long-term partnership was essential to manage the growing threat.
Benefit 1: Building customer trust with tangible ROI
Cybersecurity can feel like an insurance policy where customers pay for a service without seeing a clear return. NordStellar changed that by providing concrete data that Tailor Made Technologies could share with clients.
Using monthly dark web reports, the team sits down with each customer to review findings, explain the origins of exposed data, and outline mitigation steps. This transparent process demonstrates the value of their security investment.
"When we can show our customers in a report how NordStellar works and what dark web threats it's preventing, they get a better feel of the value for their investment."
Benefit 2: Delivering affordable enterprise-grade solutions
A major hurdle for SMEs is the high cost of top-tier security tools. NordStellar bridges this gap by offering a powerful solution at an affordable price, a key factor in Tailor Made Technologies' decision.
This allows them to package NordStellar into both managed service bundles and as a standalone product, offering flexibility for clients at different stages of their security journey. The platform is also easy to use, with a fast setup process that requires minimal technical overhead.
"We needed a solution that has that enterprise-type feature and feel, but it also has to commercially fit the bill because SMEs don't have the pockets of enterprise businesses."