How Signature Foods put an all-in-one security blanket over its production

Why manufacturers are in the crosshairs

The threat landscape has changed shape, and Peter Onland, who spent 20 years as Information Manager at Signature Foods, saw it coming. "We started with cybersecurity years ago and kept expanding it. But the threats changed. Where a virus used to be the biggest danger, now criminals can spend three months snooping around your systems unnoticed."

This instinct matches what defenders see across the sector:

• Manufacturing has been the most-attacked industry worldwide for four years running, accounting for the largest share of incidents of any sector (IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index).
• The median dwell time, how long a threat actor stays inside a network before being detected, sits at around 10 days industry-wide, and stretches far longer for organisations without continuous monitoring. That is more than enough time to map a network, reach production systems and prepare ransomware.
• For a food producer, the consequence isn't abstract. Downtime, spoiled inventory and missed deliveries turn a security event into a supply chain event within hours. Increasingly, customers demand proof of security arrangements before they'll keep buying.

"The biggest risk we run, apart from damage to our image, is that the factory comes to a standstill and we can no longer ship to our customers," Onland says.

Eye Security gave Signature Foods what it had been missing: early detection of abnormal behaviour, specialists on call the moment something looks wrong, and a clear path to meeting its insurers' requirements, all in one solution, rolled out across every endpoint and server in three to four weeks.

The trigger: a health check, and fifty recommendations

Rather than guess, Signature Foods commissioned a broad security health check with its IT partner. "We took a very wide approach. We did the digital checks, but we also mapped how physically accessible our server room was. We really got down to brass tacks, and it yielded a lot of valuable information."

The result was a report with around fifty prioritised recommendations. This led to two conclusions. First, Signature Foods needed a security partner who could act during an incident, not just advise before one. Second, that partner had to be lined up in advance.

"When your company is hit and needs experts, life gets difficult if you don't already have an agreement. Demand for specialists is so high now. I wanted to be sure that in the event of an incident, we had expertise available immediately."
Peter Onland
Former IT Manager

What set Eye Security apart

What convinced Onland was alignment, both technical and human. "The way Eye uses detection is exactly in line with what we'd thought up internally. We wanted to detect abnormal behaviour on our networks early and isolate things the moment there is an alarm."

Just as important was who stood behind the product. "The founders' backgrounds appealed to me, because they want to help businesses our size. There are specialists who serve the large multinationals but Eye makes good security, including tools, knowledge and specialists, accessible to companies like ours at an affordable price." The relationship mattered more than the transaction.

"I can really talk to them, and they think constructively. They don't just come in with some commercial product."
Peter Onland
Former IT Manager

A blanket over the whole group

Signature Foods now uses Eye Security as a single protective layer across the group, beginning in the Netherlands and extending to Belgium and Poland.

Onboarding set the tone. "The whole process was pleasant. We had an intake interview and made clear agreements up front, including whether Eye could isolate a server in the middle of a working day if they saw something. Then we logged into a portal with all the documentation and tools ready to go. Eye's experts helped us roll out efficiently and smoothly across every endpoint and server. In three to four weeks, we had all our devices under Eye's security blanket."

Protection didn't stop at tooling. Signature Foods pairs it with internal awareness, monthly threat briefings for staff, plus Eye's phishing simulations, and is using Eye's posture to satisfy increasingly cautious cyber insurers. "It's nice to know Eye protects the company in such a way that I immediately meet the requirements insurers set."

Detection that has already proven its value

The value became concrete during a real incident at one of Signature Foods' Dutch sites. "Fortunately, that business unit was already under Eye's security blanket, so specialists were immediately available to help trace the source of the phishing attack. It turned out to come from Nigeria, and ultimately no real harm was done, no data was stolen. But without Eye Security, I'd never have been able to oversee the incident and understand which users were compromised."

For Onland, the outcome is peace of mind and focus. "Having Eye's people detecting anomalies and identifying incidents quickly gives me a lot of calm. They focus on security 24/7, while I have to do security alongside my other IT work. Our management is very happy with the collaboration. It has really proven its value for us."