Education

Institutions of higher education continue to expand their digital footprints by collecting and processing data to attract students and provide services. As they seek to embed data privacy and security into their technology environments, they struggle to implement the administrative and technical controls because they often lack experienced security staff.

We can help you implement the technologies and education necessary to build public trust by protecting student, staff, and research data.

Assess and Mitigate Risks Across the Expanded Digital Footprint 

Institutional applications create a complex, interconnected IT environment that can expose them to privacy and cybersecurity risks. Simultaneously, higher education struggles to shift its mindset and minimize the data it collects. When combined with the cybersecurity skills gap’s impact, many institutions find that they lack the staff to help them identify risks and make cybersecurity investments.

 

By partnering with us, you can supplement your internal IT department’s capabilities and build a robust risk assessment and mitigation program that includes:

  • Defining risk management objectives, controls, and key performance indicators
  • Mitigating and managing third-party risk
  • Identifying and measuring risk with an easy-to-use risk register and matrix
  • Engaging in a gap assessment that identifies system vulnerabilities and missing controls
  • Generating an asset inventory for all devices connected to networks and subnetworks
  • Implementing appropriate security controls to mitigate risks across identity and access, networks, endpoints, and applications
  • Continuous risk and threat monitoring

Accelerate and Document Compliance Readiness 

Institutions collect, store, process, and transmit vast amounts of student, staff, faculty, alumni, donor, and research participant personal data. As data stewards, they need to comply with various data protection mandates, including:  

  • Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
  • Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects ("Common Rule")
  • Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
  • Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS)
  • Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACT Act)

education, higher education

Pairing our vCISO solution with SingularREADY™, our end-to-end cybersecurity solution, enables you to accelerate your compliance program by:

 

  • Identifying key compliance mandates
  • Engaging in readiness reviews by reviewing current policies, processes, and technical controls
  • Defining key performance indicators
  • Providing security awareness training and documentation
  • Engaging in penetration testing and active threat hunting
  • Working with a 24/7 security operations center (SOC) to assess incident severity, prioritize remediation, analyze forensics, and engage in post-incident evaluation

Manage Audit Activities and Communicate Program Effectiveness 

With the proliferation of privacy and security laws, institutions of higher education have new legal and ethical data protection responsibilities. Institutional leaders need to understand basic cybersecurity and privacy principles so that they can make informed decisions and comply with governance requirements.

 

With our suite of services, institutions gain the cybersecurity and privacy leadership necessary to position themselves as organizations committed to safeguarding privacy and data by:

  • Communicating security metrics across IT, leadership, and general counsel
  • Providing internal and external auditors with accurate, relevant documentation
  • Using a Compliance Controls dashboard linked to documentation to review compliance mapped across multiple mandates
  • Gaining support for on-site audits
  • Prioritizing post-audit activities and responses

To learn how Singular Security can help you implement ethical and transparent data practices, contact us today.