The top-performing modern university in Scotland, GCU has campuses in the center of Glasgow and London and is well known for its academic teaching and research programs, especially in the area of healthcare. As colleges and universities around the world continue to be a target for damaging cyberattacks, especially ransomware attacks, there has been an intensifying focus on protecting access to the applications and systems students and staff rely on, while preventing against credential theft that could put intellectual property and sensitive data at risk.
“In recent years GCU and others within the sector have increasingly been the target of cyberattacks. These risks drove us to completely reassess our approach to cybersecurity in general, and identity and access management in particular,” said Tahir Yousaf, IT director at GCU. “We needed to closely examine every aspect of our security stack. We selected the CyberArk platform for its well-established privileged access management and access management capabilities, knowing it could offer additional identity security capabilities as we mature and expand our security programs.”
Centered on intelligent privilege controls, the CyberArk Identity Security Platform secures human and machine identities and flexibly automates the identity lifecycle – all with continuous threat detection and prevention to enable Zero Trust and enforce least privilege.
In addition to supporting ongoing audit and upcoming regulatory requirements, and boosting productivity and securing privileged access for its team of IT administrators, the CyberArk Identity Security Platform - once implemented - will enable GCU to:
Authenticate users with adaptive multi-factor authentication
Securely access and share student and staff application passwords
Secure web applications from threats originating on the endpoint and prevent data exfiltration
Provide greater insight into user risk and potential threats
Demonstrate compliance
Improve user lifecycle management
Continuously review and verify access
Prevent credential theft and limit privilege escalation and lateral movement
“According to our research, 89% of organizations indicated they were targeted by at least one ransomware attack in the last 12 months,” said Matt Cohen, CEO, CyberArk. “And when you consider high-value information universities generate, like research data, combined with a varied set of users with various levels of access and permissions, it’s no wonder higher education is a frequent target. CyberArk is committed to our role as a long-term partner and working closely with GCU to help the University construct a comprehensive identity security program – mapped to protecting against future threats.”
