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Posted September 8, 2020
Higher education institutions encounter lots of complex security hurdles. All these results from the need to manage, support, and protect vast volumes of digital assets that are always at risk. IT and security departments in universities and colleges are responsible for safeguarding sensitive student and staff information, intellectual property, and other research and academic pursuits.
Education facilities nowadays work with different types of vendors to counter the higher cost of serving students. For instance, you may collaborate with integrated learning platforms, software, insights, and services from such vendors. This means that you’ll encounter lots of data ranging from student financing to health records to academic progress reports.
To add to the enormous volumes of data, networks, and supported assets, higher education institutions face constant threats from malicious individuals. Most of these threat actors seek to harm the institution through social engineering attacks like phishing.
Fortunately, higher education institutions can avoid potentially harmful threats through regular vendor risk assessments.
Vendors offer value in the experience and expertise they provide to higher education institutions. However, it would be best if you still had active oversight through a detailed risk assessment. Here are the crucial consideration factors for higher education institutions’ vendor risk assessment:
Every higher education facility must collaborate with third-party vendors to achieve their objectives efficiently. This makes it necessary for colleges and universities to establish a robust Vendor Risk Management approach. The strategy helps assess the security practices of your vendors.
A few years ago, chief information security officers from different institutions came up with HECVAT (Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment Tool). The solution was created to relieve university and college security teams from the tedious task of assessing their cloud vendors. It was established to combine the right assessment requirements for vendors and security best practices. The result is a seamless strategy that allows higher education institutions to assess vendors efficiently.
IT, risk, security, and procurement teams must evaluate any associated risks before purchasing an additional third-party vendor solution. Before you adopt a solution, the provider must first complete a HECVAT assessment. This is to confirm that the vendor has the right information and security policies for protecting your sensitive data and constituents’ personally identifiable information.
HECVAT is the first step when you want to establish a vendor risk management system for the education facility. The next step involves identifying the right risk assessment platform offering highly customizable assessment frameworks.
Most IT and security teams in higher education facilities dedicate only a small part of their time to establish a working cybersecurity strategy. But doing this could leave a significant impact on colleges and universities. Adopting a dynamic approach could help convert a good cybersecurity team into an excellent one.
Here are the critical cybersecurity best practices in institutions of higher learning:
The current higher education facilities are characterized by bustling workspaces and classrooms, limiting the delivery of information to teaching staff. You can avoid cybersecurity risks by coming up with an exclusive communication channel for sending high-priority messages.
If well managed, this essential practice helps in the identification of any malicious activity. IT administrators and technology cover this. You can also seek an outsourced cybersecurity service from a reputable agency like GreyCastle Security to protect you from threats like crypto-mining.
For rapid threat detection and response, time will always be of the essence. If you wish to minimize any impact arising from an unforeseeable event, you must always be prepared for incident response.
You can avoid exploits on documented susceptibilities through regular vulnerability scanning. You can also leverage advanced technology to be able to patch well-known vulnerabilities.
The students themselves usually cause most compromises in higher education institutions. But you can beat the threat actors through a proper network segmentation strategy that designates systems for regulated and private data.
Unsuspecting higher education personnel could be easy targets for phishing attacks. This would ultimately lead to tax fraud or widespread identity theft. Continuous security awareness training for employees can help them identify cybersecurity threats, avoid them, and report the incident.
GreyCastle Security is reputable for offering compliance guidance and cybersecurity risk assessments in both universities and colleges across North America. The agency can help in regulatory compliance with higher education guidelines such as the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards.
Today, almost all students use personal devices for learning, which places the institution’s digital assets at risk. We offer network threat detection solutions to reduce the threat surface on the complex network of devices. Working with us also helps you enhance your operational efficiencies, and every user will understand the relevant best practices. Finally, you are assured of lower IT costs.
If you still haven’t adopted vendor risk management in your institution’s cybersecurity program, it is never too late. Now is the right time to begin. Contact GreyCastle Security today to ensure your student and business is safe from cybersecurity threats.
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Ho Chin is Chief Financial Officer at GreyCastle Security. In this role, Ho leads Finance, HR, IT and Professional Development. As part of the executive leadership team, Ho works to establish the company’s overall strategy and ensure proper execution of the supporting initiatives pertaining to the above areas of responsibility.
Prior to joining GreyCastle Security, Ho led finance and administrative functions at multiple private equity and venture-backed portfolio companies across multiple industries. Ho holds a bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Pennsylvania State University in Centre County, Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in Business Administration from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Dan Kalil is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Board Chairman at GreyCastle Security. In this role, Dan provides vision, leadership and strategies that drive GreyCastle Security’s position as an industry leader. With an emphasis on customer success, Dan’s profitable growth model leverages a customer-centric business approach that balances employee wellbeing and social responsibility.
Prior to becoming CEO, Dan served as the company’s Chief Strategy Officer, during which he supported multiple acquisitions and helped the organization achieve substantial sales growth. In addition to serving as CEO at GreyCastle Security, Dan continues to hold the position of Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) at Assured information Security (AIS) in Rome, New York, a company he co-founded in 2001.
Over the course of the last 22 years, Dan has been committed to advancing the state of cybersecurity and has played an instrumental role in the identification and development of critical, next-generation cyber capabilities. He has held positions in almost every facet of cybersecurity, beginning as a computer forensic examiner and progressing through the management and executive leadership ranks. In addition to co-founding AIS, Dan has facilitated multiple cybersecurity startups, raised investment capital and has served in various lead and support roles toward the acquisition of five companies in the last eight years.
Dan has a bachelor’s degree in Cybersecurity and a master’s degree in Cybersecurity from Utica College in Utica, New York.
Michael Stamas is an entrepreneur, board member, Vice President and a founder of GreyCastle Security. With more than two decades of experience in the technology sector, Mike pairs his management and business development skills with a deep understanding of cybersecurity. Mike brings a unique brand of risk-based advising to GreyCastle clients and prospects.
Mike holds certifications in numerous security and technology related areas, including the Department of Homeland Security and other security technologies like Symantec, Cisco and Microsoft.
Mike plays an active role in his community and serves as a board member and Vice President of InfraGard Albany as well as an advisory board position with the Capital Region YMCA.
Mike has been recognized for his numerous achievements through various honors including the Albany Business Review’s prestigious 40 Under 40 award.
Dan Maynard serves as GreyCastle Security’s Chief Operating Officer, where he currently leads Sales, Marketing and Legal.
Dan has enjoyed a 30+ year career in the Information Technology and Telecommunications industry, during which time he has held various leadership positions for organizations such as Rochester Tel/RCI, Citizens Communications (Frontier), PAETEC Communications, IntegraOptics, tw telecom/Level3 and Centurylink.
In addition to various voice and data technology platforms, he possesses a strong background in leadership development, sales and marketing leadership, transformational leadership and strategic planning. Dan has a thirst for knowledge and as a committed lifelong learner, he encourages and supports professional development initiatives for his teams and continues his involvement with Vistage International.
Dan holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he was selected as a member of their Athletic Hall of Fame in 2016.
When not at work, Dan enjoys traveling, golfing, attending Utica Comets hockey games and relaxing in the Adirondacks on beautiful Canada Lake with family and friends.
Dan Didier is the Vice President of Solutions and board member at GreyCastle Security.
Dan has been a cybersecurity practitioner for more than 20 years and uses his knowledge and experience to develop cybersecurity solutions that ensure readiness and preparedness.
Dan received his bachelor’s degree in Telecommunications from SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Utica, New York, and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a master’s degree in Information Assurance from Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont.
Our Computer Incident Response Teams (CIRTs) have responded to hundreds of breaches, intrusions, malware infections, thefts, employee investigations, fraud cases and other incidents. Our highly-certified experts have extensive experience in command, coordination and correction of incidents in nearly every industry throughout North America, from local businesses to Fortune 500 international conglomerates.
800-403-8350Francesca LoPorto-Brandow is Director of Culture at GreyCastle Security. In this role, Francesca leads all social responsibility efforts and partnerships and develops effective strategies that promote organizational-wide behaviors and attitudes consistent with a culture of safety, inclusion, teamwork, motivation and high-performance.
Prior to this role, Francesca was Director of People & Culture at GreyCastle and with her leadership, the company’s culture has been recognized by Inc. Magazine as a Nationally recognized Best Workplace, Albany Business Review Best Places to Work and Albany Times Union Top Workplaces.
Before joining GreyCastle Security, Francesca worked as an OD consultant and focused on strategic culture change at The Kaleel Jamison Consulting Group, Inc. for more than six years. There, she facilitated client education sessions, coached leaders and teams, developed and executed consulting interventions and served as strategy project leader on various client engagements. Her work has taken her into Fortune 100 companies and across borders including Panama, Singapore and beyond.
Francesca is a Lean Six Sigma–certified Green Belt, a proud YWCA-GCR board member and in 2013, she coordinated and emceed the inaugural TEDx Troy—a livestream of TEDCity 2.0. Since 2012, she has coordinated and emceed the Troy 100 Forum, a biannual forum for government, religious and community leaders to discuss issues vital to the future of Troy, New York.
Bilingual in English and Italian, Francesca holds a bachelor’s degree in Management and Technology from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lally School of Management & Technology. She was awarded Cybersecurity Recruiter of the year North America in 2017 by the Cybersecurity Excellence Awards.
Jamie Aiello is Senior Vice President of Services and Product Management at GreyCastle Security. In this position, Jamie is responsible for leading a high performing and well-balanced team that is ultimately responsible for the identification, selection, execution and successful performance of our company’s diverse portfolio of cybersecurity offerings.
Prior to joining GreyCastle Security, Jamie has held leadership positions with Annese and Associates, ConvergeOne and BlueSky IT Partners with a focus on delivering cost effective information technology solutions for companies across multiple verticals.
Jamie holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, a master’s degree in Business Administration from Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina and a master’s degree in Computer Information Systems from University of Phoenix in Phoenix, Arizona.
