Charleston Southern Puts Trust in Arctic Wolf for 24x7 Protection from Growing Cyberthreats

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.

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.

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.

• Greater network visibility and more assurance with 24x7 monitoring.
• Successful pilot program to validate Managed Detection and Response solution.
• Fast, easy integration with Microsoft 365 and VPN.
• Weekly reporting, monthly meetings, and quarterly reviews to strengthen security posture.
• Guided setup made the deployment process quick and easy.

• Data breaches cost an average of $4.77 million per breach.
• Higher education ranked seventh on the list of 17 industries facing increasing cyberthreats.