18 Nov 2025

Securing the defence supply chain: advancing threat detection and response across the MoD ecosystem

Guest blog by Laurent Strauss, CyberSecurity Strategist at Opentext #DefTechWeek2025

Laurent Strauss

CyberSecurity Strategist, Opentext

The UK’s defence ecosystem is undergoing a profound digital transformation. As cloud, data, and operational technologies converge, the attack surface now extends far beyond secure networks—reaching deep into the supply chain of primes, SMEs, academia, and partners that sustain military capability. Adversaries, both state-linked and criminal, exploit this complexity with persistence and precision. Ransomware, credential theft, and data-exfiltration campaigns increasingly blur geopolitical and criminal lines. Recent UK reports show a steady rise in attacks targeting Defence and its industrial partners, many through trusted third-party access or misconfigured systems.

Within this reality, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) must not only defend its own infrastructure but also build resilience across an entire digital ecosystem. The Government Cyber Security Strategy 2022–2030 calls for a “cyber-resilient public sector,” while the National Cyber Strategy promotes “persistent engagement” with threats. Defence’s own resilience framework stresses secure-by-design, rapid detection, and coordinated response.

Delivering on those ambitions requires more than traditional monitoring—it calls for intelligence-driven threat detection and response (TDR) that learns, adapts, and acts faster than the adversary.

Meanwhile, the Vision 2030 White Paper from Team Defence Information outlines a digitally integrated “Defence Digital Backbone,” where secure-by-design, interoperability, and supply-chain resilience underpin every mission. (teamdefence.info)
By aligning with this vision, OpenText Cybersecurity helps the MoD and its partners realise both operational resilience and strategic digital-transformation goals.

The modern MoD challenge

Defence operations span a unique blend of environments: classified domains, base and ship networks, cloud and on-prem systems, operational technology, and partner-connected supply-chain assets. The mission is clear: maintain operational continuity under cyber pressure.

That brings specific challenges:

Spotting the subtle: Credential misuse and insider abuse often go unnoticed until damage is done.
Reducing signal-to-noise: SOC teams face overwhelming alert volumes, masking dangerous anomalies.
Linking identity to activity: Zero-trust ambitions require behaviour-based context around every user and device.
Coordinating rapid response: Defence can’t afford slow containment—actions must be orchestrated across multiple domains.

These challenges directly mirror UK policy goals of improving visibility, accelerating response, and strengthening resilience across government and Defence.

Intelligence-driven threat detection in action

This is where OpenText™ Core Threat Detection & Response (Core TDR) provides tangible capability for Defence and its suppliers.
Instead of relying on static rules or signatures, Core TDR uses self-learning behavioural analytics to understand what “normal” looks like for each user, system, and peer group—then surfaces subtle deviations that may indicate compromise. It learns continuously as networks evolve, enabling early detection of low-and-slow or insider-driven threats that traditional tools often miss.

Key strengths for defence and the supply chain

Adaptive analytics at scale: Profiles behaviour across users and systems, detecting anomalies such as unusual data transfers or privilege escalation.
Entity-risk visibility: Ranks risky entities so analysts see the highest-priority issues first—vital in MoD-scale estates.
Alert precision: Correlates redundant alerts to reduce noise and improve mean time to detect (MTTD) and respond (MTTR).
Ecosystem integration: Connects with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Entra ID, and Copilot—already common across government—for richer context without re-engineering.
Hybrid and defence-grade: Works seamlessly across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments, aligning with Defence’s multi-domain posture.

Together, these capabilities position OpenText Cybersecurity as an enabler of MoD’s cyber-resilience goals—augmenting human analysts with automation, contextual insight, and cross-ecosystem visibility.

Aligning with vision 2030 and MoD priorities

1. Persistent, adaptive defence

Vision 2030 envisions a unified digital backbone supporting real-time operational agility. Core TDR’s adaptive models evolve with changing mission networks and data flows—detecting anomalies early to prevent mission-impacting breaches.

2. Resilience across legacy and modern estates

The white paper stresses secure-by-design infrastructure. Core TDR complements this by delivering compensating controls where legacy systems cannot yet be modernised—risk-scoring entities and guiding SOC focus while long-term upgrades continue.

3. Identity and insider-threat focus

With many breaches tied to valid credentials, Core TDR adds behavioural context to detect off-hours access, data hoarding, or privilege misuse—key pillars of the MoD’s zero-trust journey.

4. Supply-chain and partner security

Vision 2030 highlights supply-chain resilience as a foundation of national security. Core TDR extends unified detection logic across partner environments, enabling collaborative defence and shared situational awareness.

5. Workforce augmentation

Technology must amplify scarce cyber talent. Automation and risk prioritisation help junior analysts triage effectively and free experts for proactive threat hunting—aligned with the UK Government’s goal of upskilling Defence cyber capability.

Tangible outcomes for defence and partners

Faster detection of credential abuse within minutes using behavioural baselines.
Reduced alert fatigue via consolidated, risk-scored timelines.
Improved insider-threat posture across sensitive programmes.
Enhanced assurance reporting aligned with Vision 2030 resilience indicators.

A pragmatic path forward

Prioritise high-risk domains. Start with sensitive data and OT networks plus high-privilege identity stores.
Leverage existing telemetry. Integrate Core TDR with Microsoft Defender and Entra ID for immediate visibility.
Develop mission-specific playbooks. Pre-approve containment steps—such as isolation or privilege suspension—for rapid, governed response.
Measure and iterate. Track MTTD, MTTR, and entity-risk reduction; benchmark against Vision 2030 and Government Cyber Security Strategy objectives.

Conclusion

The UK has set a clear course: greater resilience, faster response, and sustained advantage in contested cyberspace.
Achieving that vision requires intelligence-driven detection and collaboration across every layer of the Defence ecosystem—from MoD networks to the smallest supplier.

OpenText Cybersecurity embodies this shift. Its self-learning analytics, identity-centric insights, and automation capabilities enable Defence to see the unseen—spotting emerging threats before disruption and empowering decisive action.

In an era where adversaries move silently through trusted connections, adaptive, behaviour-driven detection is not just a technology upgrade—it is the foundation of a resilient defence supply chain, fully aligned with the Vision 2030 Digital Backbone for a secure and connected UK.

Operationalising DefTech campaign week 2025 #DefTechWeek2025

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Operationalising DefTech: Defence campaign week launch

Launching techUK’s Defence Campaign Week, Operationalising DefTech, techUK is pleased to welcome John Cunningham, the Director of UK Defence Innovation within the Ministry of Defence to brief members on MOD’s evolving approach to new technologies, alongside the co-founder of Anduril Industries Christian Brose, and Sara Sharkey from Prolinx.

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