How I helped other estranged students to thrive at university

Unite Scholar Asher Flanagan created and hosted an informative event of advice and networking for care leavers and estranged young people considering university. She spoke to us about why she is so passionate about broadening access to higher education.

“After joining Unite Students as Chief Information Officer, I quickly discovered how important our best-in-sector technology is in delivering exceptional service to our customers and teams. Since these systems process sensitive personal information, I wanted to be sure that they were as secure as possible.

We set ourselves the challenge of getting our security independently assessed and chose the Cyber Essentials Plus (CE+) scheme as our benchmark. CE+ is a UK Government Scheme that provides guidance to help businesses guard against the most common cyber threats. Meeting the standard’s requirements shows that a business is protected against 80% of the most common cyber-attacks – this was just the assurance that I was looking for.

After a thorough audit of many areas of our IT and technical security controls we were successfully awarded the Cyber Essentials Plus certification. The feedback from the auditor was particularly gratifying where it was noted that on many test scenarios Unite performed better than average and our overall security posture was rated as “very good”.

Becoming certified provides uS with a clear picture of our current cyber security level and also demonstrates our ongoing commitment to Information Security.

I continue to be impressed by how motivated my colleagues and suppliers are to protect our information and the information of our university partners, students and investors. As our business evolves, we will need to ensure that our defences continue to provide suitable protection, but I’m optimistic that our ongoing efforts will meet those challenges head on.”

– Jeremy Ehlers, Chief Information Officer, Unite Students