How Nationwide is future-proofing security with Microsoft Sentinel

Nationwide needed a unified security data platform to keep pace with fast-evolving AI-driven threats, enhancing business resilience.

Microsoft Sentinel and its data lake unify security data across platforms, enabling scalable, cost-effective analytics, long-term retention, and AI-driven threat detection, all within a cloud-native SIEM and SOAR solution.

With the full security visibility of Microsoft Sentinel, Nationwide cut threat response times, boosted efficiency, and freed resources for more strategic work.

In the financial services industry, security extends beyond technical protocols—it is a vital business imperative. With digital transformation accelerating, financial organizations face a rapidly growing and increasingly complex threat environment. The sophistication of cyberattacks is rising, with offensive AI and autonomous threat agents posing significant risks.

Nationwide, the world’s biggest building society and one of the United Kingdom’s largest financial institutions, recognized the urgency of this shift. With £367 billion in assets and 16 million customers, Nationwide plays a critical role in the country’s financial infrastructure.

The organization needed to modernize its security operations to reduce the time it takes to detect and respond to threats, improve operational efficiency, and ensure long-term resilience. This meant moving to a unified platform that could deliver end-to-end visibility across its digital estate, make improvements to threat detection and response, support scalable log ingestion and retention, and enable exposure management to reduce misconfigurations and prioritize risk.

“We chose Microsoft for its R&D, its ecosystem, and its ability to help us defend at machine speed with Microsoft Sentinel.”

David Boda, Chief Security and Resilience Officer, Nationwide

The case for transformation over iteration

“We were aware that we needed to uplift our capability in the security operations center,” explains David Boda, Chief Security and Resilience Officer at Nationwide. “We wanted a platform where we could face into the challenges of offensive use of AI.”

Nationwide’s decision to migrate from its previous security information and event management (SIEM) solution was not taken lightly. Leadership faced a strategic crossroads: continue investing in an incumbent solution with limited innovation or embrace a security platform that could consolidate visibility and defend at machine speed.

With the time to renew its security solution provider approaching, Nationwide had a strategic call to make. “We could either continue to iteratively invest in the incumbent or really buy into the benefits of a unified platform,” Boda recalls. “We chose Microsoft for its R&D, its ecosystem, and its ability to help us defend at machine speed with Microsoft Sentinel.”

Reducing risk, enhancing resilience

Nationwide’s decision to migrate to Microsoft Sentinel and Sentinel data lake delivered a modern, cloud-native security platform. Microsoft Sentinel offers intelligent detection, automation, and response, while the data lake helps ensure scalable, long-term storage and advanced analytics. This integration empowers security teams to protect their organizations with speed, depth, and confidence.

Nationwide has strengthened its security with Microsoft solutions that work together across data, identity, and devices, building a strong foundation for protection and response. Microsoft Sentinel then brings these pieces together to deliver advanced detection and investigation.

The impact of Nationwide’s transformation was significant and measurable, reducing the time it takes to detect and respond to threats, improving operational efficiency, and enhancing its risk posture. The result: less noise and a stronger security posture that frees teams to focus on protecting the business’s 16 million customers.

“The Microsoft Sentinel platform gives us a solid foundation on which we’ll be able to prepare ourselves for the offensive use of AI, which has turned from a horizon risk into a near-term reality.”

David Boda, Chief Security and Resilience Officer, Nationwide

A roadmap for continued innovation

As threats evolve, the organization remains committed to staying ahead of threats, defending at machine speed, and building a resilient future for its customers and the financial ecosystem it supports.

“By having the Microsoft Sentinel ecosystem, the ability to use Azure Logic Apps and Copilot will allow our colleagues to focus on some of the high-value tasks and the threat hunting that we need them to do,” says Boda. “The Microsoft Sentinel platform gives us a solid foundation on which we’ll be able to prepare ourselves for the offensive use of AI, which has turned from a horizon risk into a near-term reality.”

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