Mannik Merchandise is a trusted, award-winning family business specialising in branded merchandise and uniforms, backed by more than 25 years of combined industry expertise.

As one of the UK’s top independent branded merchandise providers, they deliver a personalised and seamless service tailored to each client’s needs.

Mannik have been a NovaBytes client for years and have utilised many of our services including Cloud Communications and IT Support.

Mannik Merchandise were facing serious cyber security challenges. The company had started receiving an overwhelming number of phishing emails, often daily, making it difficult for staff to spot genuine communications. As their profile in the industry grew, so did their visibility to cyber criminals.

Director Maxx explained, “It was getting ridiculous – we were seeing more phishing emails than real ones some days. You’d almost expect every new email to be a scam.”

The concern wasn’t just the volume of attacks, but the sophistication of the phishing attempts, many of which were cleverly disguised and hard to detect. Even with experienced staff, the risk of someone accidentally clicking something harmful was growing rapidly.

At the same time, Mannik Merchandise had no formal data backup solution in place. Company files and essential documents were only stored locally, meaning any successful cyber attack could have had devastating consequences. With the increasing pressure from phishing attacks and no backup safety net, it became clear they urgently needed to strengthen their cyber security posture.

Following an in-depth consultation, it was clear that Mannik Merchandise needed a robust cyber security solution that would address both incoming threats and the risk of data loss.

NovaBytes first deployed the Barracuda Email Protection suite to secure the company’s email environment. As part of this deployment, Email Gateway Defense was configured with customised policies and a tailored allow/block list to ensure genuine communications were properly distinguished from phishing and spam emails. This proactive filtering now shields staff from the overwhelming volume of malicious emails they were previously receiving.

To further strengthen email security, Barracuda Impersonation Protection was implemented. By integrating deeply with the company’s Microsoft 365 environment, this tool learns the normal communication patterns of employees, helping to detect and flag any suspicious activity that could indicate a potential account takeover.

In addition, Domain Fraud Protection was set up by enforcing strict DMARC standards. This prevents external attackers from spoofing the Mannik Merchandise domain, protecting both the company’s reputation and their clients from impersonation attempts.

Beyond email security, NovaBytes addressed the critical issue of data protection. A full Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud Backup solution was deployed across the Microsoft 365 environment. This ensures that key data from OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, and even Entra ID profiles are now securely backed up to a secondary cloud location, providing peace of mind against accidental loss, ransomware, or cyber attacks.

With these solutions in place, Mannik Merchandise now enjoys a significantly strengthened cyber security posture, better business continuity safeguards, and far greater resilience against phishing and other cyber threats.

The combination of targeted email protection, robust data backup, and improved domain security has significantly strengthened Mannik Merchandise’s cyber resilience. Director Arlene mentioned, “The difference has been night and day. Before, it felt like every other email was a scam — now, our inboxes are actually usable again. It’s a huge weight off our shoulders.”

Thanks to these improvements, Mannik Merchandise now has peace of mind that their communication channels and critical company data are well-protected, while the risk of successful cyber attacks has been dramatically reduced.