Major UK Bank Accelerates Cloud Transformation With 50% Faster Security Delivery
A major UK high street bank undertaking a strategic digital transformation needed rapid security assurance for their expanding AWS cloud platform. Threatplane's approach transformed security from a development constraint into a business accelerator, achieving 3x faster development cycles across 250+ AWS accounts.
Executive Summary
A major UK high street bank undertaking a strategic digital transformation needed rapid security assurance for their expanding AWS cloud platform. With 250+ AWS accounts and multiple DevOps teams deploying critical financial services, traditional security approaches were creating bottlenecks that threatened strategic initiatives. Through more than 60 threat models across diverse applications, the bank achieved 3x faster development cycles, eliminated security overcorrection, and built shared understanding of risk priorities across engineering teams.
Customer Profile
Company Details
Company: Major UK high street bank
Industry: Financial services
Scale: Enterprise-level digital transformation program
Timeline: Strategic 3-year cloud platform build-out
Technology Stack
Platform: 250+ AWS accounts
Tools: Hashicorp Vault, GitHub Enterprise, Jenkins, Harness, GitHub Actions, Buildkite, Snyk, Prisma Cloud
Team Structure: Multiple DevSecOps teams with internal shared responsibility model
The Challenge
Strategic Initiative at Risk
The bank's digital transformation was business-critical, but security assurance was becoming a bottleneck. The bank has stringent security requirements for new workloads to go live.
The combination of these complex requirements and security assurance bottleneck was that new cloud services couldn't go live on schedule, threatening strategic deadlines and putting the entire programme at risk as internal customers lost faith in the promise of swift, agile deployments.
Security Overcorrection Problem
Engineering teams were spending significant effort addressing wrong security priorities. Engineers frequently complained that many security tickets were of arbitrary importance while actual threats remained unaddressed.
Engineers were becoming frustrated with security requirements that were foisted upon them at the last minute just before workloads were due to go live, causing tension and diverting precious engineering resources.
Complex Multi-Team Environment
With dozens of DevOps teams working on shared cloud services (encryption, vulnerability management, data storage, analytics), coordinating security understanding across teams was nearly impossible.
Capability Gap & Enterprise Risk
The bank lacked internal threat modeling expertise and couldn't source sufficient talent from existing providers to meet the velocity demands of their transformation program.
Without clear business context for security findings, enterprise risk registers were out of date, and cloud security teams did not have a clear view of where risks actually lay within the cloud environment.
Solution Overview
Initial Proof of Value
Threatplane began with a targeted threat modeling exercise on a critical cloud workload. This initial engagement demonstrated the comprehensive value of threat modeling by involving engineers at all skill levels, incorporating the bank's risk appetite into technical assessments, and delivering actionable outputs within a predictable timeline.
- Minimal time investment from engineering teams protected their productive capacity
- Security leaders, product owners, and cloud architects gained crucial decision-making tools
- Prioritizing design changes and security controls became data-driven
Scaled Threat Modeling Program
Following our proven four-stage process (risk workshop, architecture workshop, threat assessment, and controls prioritization), Threatplane worked directly with development teams to threat model new workloads as they were built. This approach gave engineering teams firsthand insights into their workloads' risk profiles and control requirements.
- Created shared understanding between business, security, and engineering stakeholders
- Workshop debates captured in threat models to inform business prioritization
- Direct insight into security risks and pragmatic remediation approaches
Multi-Team Value Creation
The threat modeling program delivered value across the organization, from engineering teams gaining direct insight into security risks, to security teams benefiting from pre-completed risk assessments that streamlined security governance.
- Product Teams: Unprecedented visibility into security aspects and risk envelopes
- Risk & Compliance Teams: Early insight into control gaps and high-quality data
- Security Teams: Precise, high-fidelity detection rules with rich contextual information
Enterprise Scale Delivery
Threatplane scaled the program across multiple teams and business lines, building a comprehensive knowledge base of cloud platform controls and risks. By avoiding duplication and keeping engineering involvement focused, we achieved remarkable efficiency—executing one threat model per week at peak velocity and ultimately delivering over 70 threat models across the bank's cloud estate.
Results & Impact
3x Faster Security Assurance
Teams moved from uncertainty-driven delays to confident, rapid development within clear security boundaries
- Bottleneck Elimination
Security assurance transformed from constraint to enabler
- Clear Risk Boundaries
Teams understood exactly where they could develop freely
Risk Management Optimization
Eliminated Security Waste: Stopped 50% of ineffective security work that addressed minimal risks, redirecting effort to actual threat mitigation
- Eliminated Security Waste
50% reduction in ineffective security work
- Clear Risk Boundaries
Teams understood where additional controls were required
Strategic Business Value
Critical cloud services launched on schedule, supporting strategic business initiatives with enhanced decision-making capabilities
- Accelerated Time-to-Market
Critical cloud services launched on schedule
- Enhanced Decision-Making
Clear understanding of security investment trade-offs
- Scalable Process
Sustainable threat modeling approach for continued expansion
Customer Perspective
"Threatplane transformed our security approach from a brake on development into an accelerator. The threat modeling process gave our teams exactly the information they needed to make fast, confident security decisions."
Cloud Platform Security Lead
"The Threatplane threat model has given us a totally new level of insight into the security of our infrastructure and how it affects our business, something that thousands spent on other consultants never gave us."
Head of Cloud Security
"The attention to detail the Threatplane team has shown really sets the bar. We've never experienced an external team coming in and providing such swift results. Bravo!"
Product Owner
"We have used Threatplane for threat modeling over many years and they've been so, so fast and helpful in getting new applications through our governance."
Product Owner