UK Med Tech Scale-up Achieves Security Excellence Under Resource Constraints
How a 4-year partnership enabled rapid threat modeling on sensitive healthcare data while maintaining product development velocity and investor milestone achievement
Executive Summary
UK med tech scale-up handling electronic health records and genomic data across multiple geographies achieved 75% cost reduction in threat modeling and 25-50% engineering time savings through a 4-year partnership utilizing rapid threat modeling.
Customer Profile
Company Overview
Industry: Medical Technology / Healthcare
Stage: Scale-up mode
Geography: UK-based with global operations
Partnership: 4-year relationship with Threatplane
Technical Environment
Data Handled: Electronic Health Records & Genomic Data
Infrastructure: AWS-based deployment
Compliance: Cyber Essentials Plus, NHS DSP, HIPAA, multiple national/international data privacy regulations including GDPR
Team Structure: Front-end, back-end, data analysts
The Challenge
A UK-based med tech scale-up handling highly sensitive electronic health records and genomic data across multiple geographies needed to address cybersecurity requirements while operating under cash flow constraints and investor milestone pressures.
Highly Sensitive Data Requirements
Handling EHR and DNA data across UK, US, and African countries required compliance with stringent regulations including Cyber Essentials Plus, NHS Digital Security Protection Toolkit, HIPAA, and multiple national/international data privacy regulations including GDPR.
Financial & Resource Constraints
Scale-up cash flow constraints with engineering team entirely focused on achieving investor milestones tied to product goals and delivery targets.
Speed vs Security Balance
Need to minimize impact on product development while addressing cybersecurity to a suitable degree given the sensitive nature of datasets.
Solution Overview
Senior Leadership Engagement
Direct engagement with senior leadership team including CEO and COO to establish clear understanding of organizational risk posture and business constraints.
- Direct CEO and COO engagement
- Clear organizational risk posture understanding
- Business constraint assessment
- Strategic security alignment
Rapid Threat Modeling Cadence
Comprehensive threat modeling delivered on 4-week cadence, dramatically faster than traditional security assessments that took 4+ weeks just to organize.
- 4-week threat model delivery cadence
- Comprehensive Data Flow Diagrams (DFD)
- System design representation
- Third-party system integration mapping
Multi-Dimensional Security View
Comprehensive assessment covering security, resilience, data privacy, and business operations with focus on critical business services and pragmatic decision-making.
- Multi-dimensional view: security, resilience, privacy, operations
- Critical business services mapping
- Supply chain view of third-party integrations
- Pragmatic security trade-off guidance
Results & Benefits
Speed Improvements
Dramatic acceleration in security delivery enabling fast knowledge of gaps and pragmatic decision-making
- 4-week threat model cadence
vs. 4+ weeks to organize traditional pen tests
- Early gap detection
Fast knowledge enabling quick decisions
Cost Savings
Significant cost reductions and engineering time savings through proactive security approach
- 75% reduction in threat modeling costs
Thanks to strong security baseline established through early threat modelling
- 25-50% engineering time savings
On security remediation and debugging
Quality & Business Impact
Improved security posture with minimal product roadmap impact and continued investor confidence
- Strong pen test results first time
Thanks to in-depth security remediation focussing on key risk areas
- Faster compliance
Data provided by threat models enabled fast assessments
Customer Perspective
"Meeting the stringent cybersecurity requirements of our partners while hitting other key milestones to gain investor confidence could not have been done without their thoughtful, pragmatic approach."
Founder, UK Med Tech Scale-up
"Threatplane has shown us many new angles on security for our key systems, and shown us what we need to focus on."
Chief Technology Officer, Fast-growing medical research and genomics startup