Core Services
- The team needed a more efficient workflow
- They wanted to reduce manual processes, especially for analysts
- They were looking for greater value for money, with enhanced service to expand data coverage and reduce error
Case Study
What we did for Smart Pension
Industry: Finance
Published: 03/02/2026
Smart Pension wanted to improve the efficiency of their security operations. They wanted support to reduce costs, prioritise threats, and reduce manual processes in the management of complex data. With the business expanding and teams evolving, change was essential. Searching for a dependable solution with 24/7/365 monitoring, Smart Pension turned to SEP2 after a recommendation from Google. From this, they adopted SEP2’s Wingman XDR (Extended Detection and Response) service – a combination of MDR (Managed Detection and Response) and EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) – to deliver comprehensive coverage and ease internal resource constraints.
Smart's mission is to transform retirement, savings and financial wellbeing, across all generations, around the world. Smart Group delivers this across two brands - Keystone and Smart.
Keystone, Smart’s proprietary savings administration platform, supports large organisations, governments and financial institutions around the world to launch new products, scale and reduce administration time and effort. Smart Pension is one of the largest UK workplace pension providers, using the Keystone technology to manage pensions for millions of UK savers, and serves over 90,000 employers.
The decision to choose SEP2 followed a formal Request for Proposal (RFP) process involving multiple qualified providers. For Will Reddin, Cyber Security Manager at Smart, the final choice was driven by a combination of technical capability, service quality and actionable intelligence, all aimed at solving the operational challenges left by their previous provider.
When evaluating solutions, Will wanted a partner that could deliver broad coverage and high-quality analysis. The platform needed to secure cloud, endpoints and the entire technology stack, while accommodating edge-case legacy systems. Although Smart is primarily cloud and SaaS-focused, coverage for critical legacy scenarios remained essential. During the Proof of Concept (POC) phase, a major priority was the quality of actionable intelligence, moving beyond simple data collection.
Smart also needed a partner who could support the prioritisation of alerts through triage. Will explained: “We didn’t want somebody who was just going to ship alerts to us and ask us to look into them. We wanted them to do that kind of filtering out for us and then only allow us to escalate when there was something that they really thought we needed to look at.”
Timely response was another critical factor. By choosing SEP2, Smart secured a managed service that combined robust platform coverage with expert analyst triage, allowing their team to shift focus from firefighting to strategic security work.
The transition to SEP2’s Wingman XDR service was smooth, with the onboarding process for setting up the instance and configuring log sources completed faster than expected. Thanks to this seamless switch, Smart was able to overlap the new service with their previous provider, ensuring continuous coverage. Will noted: “Immediately we saw that we were getting so much more value from those alerts than we were from others.”
SEP2’s Wingman XDR service streamlined the security team’s operations and communication. Alerts were integrated directly into Jira and supported by instant Slack conversations, eliminating the need for email chains. This new dynamic made SEP2 feel like “an extension of our in-house security analyst team and our security operations centre.” Will praised the tailored approach, saying: “We have a partner who’s thinking about how we can improve these things. It just feels quite bespoke.”
Regular weekly catch-ups and dedicated tuning sessions reinforce this sense of partnership. For Smart, what stands out is the thought behind every escalation. When an alert reaches them, they know exactly why it matters. As Will put it: “Somebody’s actually had a think about it before it reaches us, and that really comes through.”
SEP2 delivered richer intelligence that strengthened Smart’s security posture. Weekly threat reports and proactive threat hunting added an extra layer of assurance, complementing in-house efforts. This collaboration led to a significant increase in Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) being blocked and improved overall threat visibility. SEP2’s support also drove a substantial cost reduction for Smart’s MSSP and SIEM solution, enabling the team to achieve more with fewer resources.
Communication was another standout benefit. Will explained: “When we get escalations, we know exactly why they’ve been escalated and what the reasoning is. More importantly, we know somebody’s actually had a think about it before it reaches us, and that really comes through.”
SEP2 tailored detections to Smart’s environment, creating a truly bespoke experience. Will summed it up: “With SEP2, we get a partner who’s thinking about how we can improve these things, rather than just relying on us or giving out-of-the-box alerts that don’t quite work for us.”
Despite experiencing a 60% surge in total case volume - reaching a new high of 200 cases in November - the SecOps team demonstrated exceptional operational stability and service value.
The service achieved a powerful 88.00% noise reduction rate, which effectively filtered the vast majority of alerts and ensured analysts could maintain a stable Customer Escalation Rate (12.00%), successfully preventing volume increase from impacting service quality. (Wingman Service Review Page 2)
SEP2 minimised customer disruption throughout the year. Out of 1,715 cases handled, our service successfully resolved 1,502 cases (87.58%) without requiring Smart involvement, ensuring smooth, uninterrupted security coverage.
Smart’s decision to partner with SEP2 was more than a technology upgrade; it marked a strategic shift. By adopting a managed service model, the organisation is now able to focus on proactive security initiatives that strengthen resilience and reduce risk.
With SEP2’s Wingman XDR service in place, Smart benefits from continuous monitoring, expert triage and actionable intelligence that scales with their evolving needs. This partnership is built on trust and collaboration, reinforced by regular tuning sessions and a shared commitment to improvement. Looking ahead, Smart plans to deepen this relationship, leveraging SEP2’s expertise for advanced threat modelling, red teaming and ongoing optimisation.
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