Case study: Australian Grand Prix Corporation boosts its cybersecurity strategy

The Australian Grand Prix Corporation needed to bolster its cybersecurity strategy as the Victorian government introduced its protective data security standards.

The Victorian Protective Data Security Framework and Standards (VPDSF) is the overall scheme for managing protective data security risks in Victoria’s public sector.

Clint Watson, division manager – technology at the Australian Grand Prix Corporation said the scheme made the entire business aware of a cybersecurity strategy.

The corporation, which is responsible for staging both the Formula One and the Motorcycle Grand Prix, did a self-assessment of the company’s cyber strategy.

“That is where we quickly realised we needed help in this space and that is where we reached out to Sekuro to assist there,” Watson said.

Watson said when it came to cybersecurity, he felt that the biggest threat was “from the outside coming in”.

“We worked our way through and we built out a security framework to help kick off our journey in cybersecurity maturity,” he said.

“Once we then worked through that and built out that framework and introduced the new policies, the VPDSF changed a little bit, grew and the assessment got more granular. That's when we worked out, we needed to move forward and get someone with a little bit more breadth in the security space.”

With the Sekuro platform, the company has better visibility of what is going on in its environment.

“We're a very seasonal business, we're a full-time staff of about 80 people. Recently, we delivered the Formula One event that went up to about 170 people,” he said.

“We have a lot of short-term customers come in and we work in a high-stress environment with a single deadline that will never move.”

Because of this, Watson said staff are under a lot of pressure to succeed so these tools help alleviate the stress of a Formula One event.

“Bringing in some of these tools to make us aware of what our own staff are doing and how they need to go about doing their work has helped from a data loss perspective. But, also helped improve internal processes along the by helping people achieve what they need to,” he ended.