The proactive nature of the WETA’s leadership, spearheaded by Ken Jones (Senior Director, IT), drove WETA to form a partnership with TorchLight to ensure appropriate support for an infosec foundation as effective—and agile—as the ever-evolving threats and risks it faces.
WETA is a leading television & radio broadcasting station in the Washington D.C. area that has won numerous awards for its programming. To continue this success, WETA has committed to harnessing the potential of new technologies including a series of important IT implementations. In late 2021, TorchLight was selected to help WETA scale and maintain a cybersecurity program that could move at the pace of change and be at the vanguard of business strategy. The cornerstone of the partnership is effective communication, mutual trust, and the shared understanding that leading-edge business outcomes start with cutting-edge cybersecurity.
“TorchLight’s focus on the service delivery aspects of the project was key to our success.” (Ken Jones, WETA Sr. Director of IT)
The proactive nature of the WETA’s leadership, spearheaded by Ken Jones (Senior Director, IT), drove WETA to form a partnership with TorchLight to ensure appropriate support for an infosec foundation as effective—and agile—as the ever-evolving threats and risks it faces. Led by TorchLight’s CTO Stephen Heath, an in-depth assessment was followed by a plan for the appropriate evolution of solution management. The plan included increased cybersecurity coverage, effective orchestration, and comprehensive incident response—with a risk-aware strategy and continuous optimization aligned to business drivers.
Augusto Melo, TorchLight’s Senior Security Engineer, spoke about the transformation plan saying: “We could sum up WETA’s disposition to assessing and evolving their InfoSec program in a sentence: ‘Let’s do it!’—something we frequently hear from them. This is a true partnership.”
Leading-edge business outcomes start with cutting-edge cybersecurity
WETA has diligently communicated with TorchLight’s SOC engineers, providing feedback on escalations, and actively helping TorchLight’s SOC engineers mitigate alert fatigue—which in turn has given those engineers time to continually improve WETA’s security posture. The teams conduct recurring meetings where TorchLight presents the latest cybersecurity news and strategies for how WETA can protect against emerging and evolving threats.
This principle of transparent and quick communication has proven essential to successfully promoting a secure environment and giving opportunities for teams to bond and create a more enjoyable environment, where people can relate to one another and look forward to the next day at work.
Ken Jones, WETA’s Senior Director of IT, spoke about TorchLight’s team saying: “TorchLight’s focus on the service delivery aspects of the project was key to our success. This concept is typically not addressed well in many IT implementations.”
For a successful infosec program, many things are expected from both client and solutions provider: commitment, communication, punctuality, trust, transparency, and flexibility. From TorchLight’s perspective, WETA presented all those qualities, together with great doses of humor and friendliness that make teamwork productive and enjoyable.
WETA was founded in 1961 and today is the leading public TV and radio broadcasting station in the nation’s capital. WETA serves Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia with educational, cultural, news, and public affairs programs and services.
TorchLight designs, builds, and manages cybersecurity that moves at the speed of opportunity to defend against business risks and illuminate the path to a secure next. We translate business needs into cybersecurity and cybersecurity into business strategy. At TorchLight, we understand there is no business outcome that can be achieved if it can’t be achieved securely. And security means more than maximizing yesterday’s technology. It means cybersecurity that moves faster than your business, that works at the leading edge of possibility to manage risks and keep threats in check. With 24×7 monitoring and remediation, we make sure customers are never left in the dark. TorchLight. Illuminating the path to a more secure future.
