Charleston Southern Puts Trust in Arctic Wolf for 24x7 Protection from Growing Cyberthreats
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- Arctic Wolf Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
- Microsoft 365
- Arctic Wolf Agent
Tech Stack
- Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
- Endpoint Security
- Cloud Security
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Customer Satisfaction
- Digital Expertise
- Employee Satisfaction
Technology Category
- Cybersecurity & Privacy - Cloud Security
- Cybersecurity & Privacy - Endpoint Security
- Cybersecurity & Privacy - Network Security
Applicable Industries
- Education
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
Use Cases
- Cybersecurity
- Intrusion Detection Systems
- Remote Asset Management
Services
- Cybersecurity Services
- System Integration
- Training
About The Customer
Charleston Southern University (charlestonsouthern.edu) is an independent, comprehensive Christian university grounded in the liberal arts tradition, located in South Carolina’s Lowcountry. Founded as Baptist College at Charleston in 1964, the school changed its name to Charleston Southern University in 1990 to reflect its growing graduate programs and provide a broader reach. U.S. News has ranked Charleston Southern’s online bachelor’s programs in the top 25 in the nation. The university has more than 550 faculty and staff and offers a range of undergraduate and graduate programs. Despite its smaller size, Charleston Southern faces significant cybersecurity challenges, similar to other higher education institutions, due to the sensitive data it holds and the increasing frequency of cyberattacks in the sector.
The Challenge
Data breaches are steadily rising at universities, costing an average of $4.77 million per breach, according to a recent report by the Ponemon Institute and IBM Security. The report also revealed that higher education ranked seventh on the list of 17 industries that face increasing cyberthreats. That’s because hacking into university networks can be quite lucrative for cyber thieves. Universities routinely store a large amount of data, including personal identifiable information (PII) such as social security numbers and financial information that—in the wrong hands—is typically used for identity theft and to open fraudulent accounts. The potential for data breaches kept Charleston Southern University Technical Director Shannon Phillips up at night. There hadn’t been a significant cybersecurity incident at the university, but Phillips knew that threats were mounting throughout higher education. Plus, recent ransomware attacks were increasing in their tri-county area—one target was located right behind the university. For two years, Phillips lobbied to add a security position to his team, which included just himself and two technical staff. However, the university couldn’t compete with the higher-paying firms in the area that attract top security talent. Phillips decided the university needed a managed solution that would alert the team to security threats they could investigate internally—and a partner that could take over and respond to cyberthreats when the situation warranted. Included among its needs were 24x7 security monitoring to assure its environment was always being evaluated for cyberthreats. Given the typically tight budgets in smaller universities, it also needed a solution that wouldn’t require a large financial investment.
The Solution
Phillips began to research cybersecurity solutions. He quickly became interested in providers who could offer managed detection and explored the options. Charleston Southern evaluated Carbon Black and others, but then discovered the Arctic Wolf® Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solution—which lined up perfectly with the university’s needs. Arctic Wolf MDR provides 24x7 monitoring of networks, endpoints, and cloud environments to detect, respond to, and recover from cyberattacks, which would give Phillips’s team greater confidence in the school’s cybersecurity posture. The solution also included a Concierge Security® Team of security experts and engineers, which would give the university a team to contact at any time. In addition, the Arctic Wolf solution was very affordable. Yet, Phillips didn’t have the final say on whether to sign on with Arctic Wolf. He had to make the case to Charleston Southern’s executive team. He noted that the university’s cybersecurity insurance required it to have safeguards in place to protect the confidentiality of student and staff information. Phillips also leveraged the recent local ransomware attacks to instill a sense of urgency. But the reason that resonated above everything else was the astronomical costs that could come with a cyberattack. Charleston Southern University has more than 550 faculty and staff that use devices connected to the network. Arctic Wolf Agent endpoint agents were added to each device and connected to the university’s servers. Starting out, the university conducted a test with 18 people and let things run for several weeks to see how everything performed on their computers. Most of the people in the test group didn’t even realize Arctic Wolf was monitoring their environment. Following a successful test, the solution was rolled out for the remaining staff and faculty.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
Case Study missing?
Start adding your own!
Register with your work email and create a new case study profile for your business.
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
IoT platform Enables Safety Solutions for U.S. School Districts
Designed to alert drivers when schoolchildren are present, especially in low-visibility conditions, school-zone flasher signals are typically updated manually at each school. The switching is based on the school calendar and manually changed when an unexpected early dismissal occurs, as in the case of a weather-event altering the normal schedule. The process to reprogram the flashers requires a significant effort by school district personnel to implement due to the large number of warning flashers installed across an entire school district.
Case Study
Revolutionizing Medical Training in India: GSL Smart Lab and the LAP Mentor
The GSL SMART Lab, a collective effort of the GSL College of Medicine and the GSL College of Nursing and Health Science, was facing a challenge in providing superior training to healthcare professionals. As clinical medicine was becoming more focused on patient safety and quality of care, the need for medical simulation to bridge the educational gap between the classroom and the clinical environment was becoming increasingly apparent. Dr. Sandeep Ganni, the director of the GSL SMART Lab, envisioned a world-class surgical and medical training center where physicians and healthcare professionals could learn skills through simulation training. He was looking for different simulators for different specialties to provide both basic and advanced simulation training. For laparoscopic surgery, he was interested in a high fidelity simulator that could provide basic surgical and suturing skills training for international accreditation as well as specific hands-on training in complex laparoscopic procedures for practicing physicians in India.
Case Study
Implementing Robotic Surgery Training Simulator for Enhanced Surgical Proficiency
Fundacio Puigvert, a leading European medical center specializing in Urology, Nephrology, and Andrology, faced a significant challenge in training its surgical residents. The institution recognized the need for a more standardized and comprehensive training curriculum, particularly in the area of robotic surgery. The challenge was underscored by two independent studies showing that less than 5% of residents in Italian and German residency programs could perform major or complex procedures by the end of their residency. The institution sought to establish a virtual reality simulation lab that would include endourological, laparoscopic, and robotic platforms. However, they needed a simulator that could replicate both the hardware and software of the robotic Da Vinci console used in the operating room, without being connected to the actual physical console. They also required a system that could provide both basic and advanced simulation training, and a metrics system to assess the proficiency of the trainees before they performed surgical procedures in the operating theater.
Case Study
Edinburgh Napier University streamlines long-distance learning with Cisco WebEX
• Geographically dispersed campus made in-person meetings costly and inconvenient.• Distance-learning programs in Malaysia, India, and China required dependable, user-friendly online tools to maximize interaction in collaborative workspaces.• Virtual learning environment required a separate sign-in process, resulting in a significant administrative burden for IT staff and limited adoption of collaboration technology.
Case Study
8x increased productivity with VKS
Before VKS, a teacher would spend a lot of time showing a group of 22 students how to build a set of stairs within a semester of 120 hours. Along with not leaving the teacher much time to provide one-on-one support for each student to properly learn carpentry, it also left a considerable amount of room for error. Key information would be misinterpreted or lost as the class was taught in the typical show-and-tell way.
Case Study
Scalable IoT Empowering GreenFlex's Sustainable Growth
GreenFlex, a company that supports sustainable development, decarbonization, and energy efficiency, faced several challenges in its quest to expand its business. The company needed to deploy a robust and sustainable IoT technology to support its growth. It was crucial for them to monitor and control devices at customer sites in a safe and reliable manner. They also needed to integrate devices across a range of communication protocols and gather and act on data to meet efficiency targets. GreenFlex had previously built IoT capabilities into its digital platform, GreenFlexIQ, to monitor and manage customer sites remotely. However, they soon realized that they needed a new platform to support their ambitions. They needed a platform that could scale to connect more devices for production management and make it easier for the operations team to manage devices in the field.