As the Data Engine for IT & Security, Cribl helps organisations overcome several challenges, including :

• Vendor lock-in
• Removing data blindspots that hamper cyber security and the wider business
• Rising data volumes, resulting in rising costs

In this first blog, we will concentrate on how Cribl can help the UK public sector deal with ever-rising data volumes whilst controlling costs.

A Busy Year Ahead…

With a general election on the horizon, this promises to be a hectic year across the UK Public Sector with some choppy waters ahead to navigate.

Financial Challenges

While the current government had to deal with momentous events such as Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, whoever forms the next government will have to deal with huge shortfalls in the UK’s public finances. These financial issues exist across all parts of the UK public sector:

• Central Government – during the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor projected that day-to-day departmental expenditure would only increase by an average of 0.9% per department from 2025. The Office of Budget Responsibility has warned that due to inflationary pressures, this would slash the real value of government departmental spending by £19.1bn
• Local Government – During the past couple of years, there have been several Section 114 (bankruptcy) notices… most recently at Birmingham and Nottingham City Councils.
• Higher Education – according to the Russell Group, Universities are running at a deficit of £1,750 per student, creating a total deficit of over £4bn
• Health – it’s estimated that the NHS will overspend its budget by over £7bn next year due to the effects of inflation and strikes

Meanwhile, Data Volumes and Cyber Attacks Continue to Grow…

Whilst there’s likely to be a financial squeeze, at the same time, the UK Public Sector will have to contend with a double whammy:

• An exponential growth in data volumes – according to IDC, data volumes are growing at 28% CAGR. That means that in just three years, the total amount of data will double.
• The continued threat of cyber attacks – the NCSC has warned of the “enduring and significant” threat to the UK. During 2023, there were high-profile cyber attacks across Central and Local Government, Health, and Higher Education.

Doing More with Less

A clear tension exists… budgets are decreasing in real terms whilst the volume of data and the number and complexity of cyber attacks continue to rise.

The UK public sector has to do more with less. Organisations have to make compromises by storing fewer data sources in their systems and/or reducing their data retention dates. But this approach is short-term, creating operational blindspots and increasing cyber risk.

Take Control of Your Data

Overcoming this tension is precisely what Cribl does. We help our customers to observe more and spend less. At CriblCon (our global customer conference), Circle K talked about how Cribl had enabled them to reduce their yearly GRC storage from 136TB to 1.6TB whilst also reducing the ingestion into their SIEM by 77% – this was achieved whilst continuing to improve their cyber security posture.

In this case study, Finality talks about how they’ve been able to help Federal Government agencies reduce event logs by 47%, facilitating a 10x increase in data onboarding speed, whilst at the same time reducing SIEM licensing costs.

Cribl compliments your existing technology platforms. Whatever the source of the data coming in (firewall, DNS, endpoints, etc) and whatever the destination it needs to go to for analysis (SIEM, Monitoring, or Analytics platforms), Cribl will work with them.

We help to remove vendor lock-in and provide UK Public Sector customers with choice and control as to what you do with your data – whether that’s through a migration to a more cost-efficient/optimised/value-added platform, a migration to the cloud, unlocking data so that it can be shared for re-use across Government.

So, as you consider your priorities for 2024, Cribl should be at the top of your agenda so that you can do more with less. If you’re ready to learn more, reach out to our team.

Cribl, the Data Engine for IT and Security, empowers organizations to transform their data strategy. Customers use Cribl’s suite of products to collect, process, route, and analyze all IT and security data, delivering the flexibility, choice, and control required to adapt to their ever-changing needs.

We offer free training, certifications, and a free tier across our products. Our community Slack features Cribl engineers, partners, and customers who can answer your questions as you get started and continue to build and evolve. We also offer a variety of hands-on Sandboxes for those interested in how companies globally leverage our products for their data challenges.