Leading Research University Enhances SharePoint Security with Imperva SecureSphere

The customer in this case study is a leading research university in the U.S. The university is focused on maintaining compliance with regulations such as FERPA, PCI, and HIPAA, and ensuring the security of their online presence. The Information Technology group at the university is responsible for securing the websites for the revenue-generating departments on campus. They use Microsoft SharePoint for their intranet portals and host public-facing websites for various services like student housing, campus parking, the university bookstore, dining programs, and more. These sites serve as self-service commerce portals for its 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The university was seeking a robust security solution for their SharePoint system to protect it from both internal and external threats.

A leading research university in the U.S. was seeking a robust security solution for their SharePoint system to protect it from both internal and external threats. The university, like many other higher education institutions, was focused on maintaining compliance with regulations such as FERPA, PCI, and HIPAA, and ensuring the security of their online presence. The Information Technology group at the university was responsible for securing the websites for the revenue-generating departments on campus. They used Microsoft SharePoint for their intranet portals and hosted public-facing websites for various services like student housing, campus parking, the university bookstore, dining programs, and more. These sites served as self-service commerce portals for its 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students, necessitating deeper security assurance and greater visibility into the SharePoint environment. The university wanted to better understand the SharePoint security posture of both its external and internal deployments. They found that native SharePoint lacked the necessary security capabilities to protect a web-facing deployment that housed sensitive data like financial information, personal health information (PHI), and personally identifiable information (PII).

After evaluating different SharePoint products, the university chose Imperva SecureSphere for SharePoint, which offered unique three-layer protection for all of SharePoint's web, file, and database resources. SecureSphere's Web Application Firewall technology, tailored to Microsoft SharePoint, provided the necessary security for the university's externally-facing SharePoint web applications. It used defenses like patented Dynamic Profiling technology, SQL injection and cross-site scripting correlation engines, and the detection of Microsoft SharePoint HTTP protocol violations to identify zero-day attempts to exploit vulnerabilities. For the university's internal SharePoint deployment, SecureSphere's activity monitoring and user rights management helped secure the division's intranet site. The solution provided the ability to pull reports on user permissions across web applications, down to the site collection and document library level. This helped the team understand where users had more access rights than required, and scale back rights where necessary.

• The implementation of Imperva SecureSphere for SharePoint significantly enhanced the university's SharePoint security posture. The solution's Web Application Firewall technology, tailored to Microsoft SharePoint, provided the necessary security for the university's externally-facing SharePoint web applications. For the university's internal SharePoint deployment, SecureSphere's activity monitoring and user rights management helped secure the division's intranet site. The solution provided the ability to pull reports on user permissions across web applications, down to the site collection and document library level. This helped the team understand where users had more access rights than required, and scale back rights where necessary. The Information Technology group at the university gained a deeper understanding of its SharePoint environment and enhanced its security posture by partnering with Imperva. The team intends to roll out SecureSphere for SharePoint to other external and internal sites in the near future.

• The university achieved application and data security for regulated and sensitive data.
• The university gained complete visibility into activity occurring on external and internal SharePoint sites.
• Imperva was the only vendor with the ability to protect all of SharePoint’s file, web, and database resources.