Cybersecurity for Educational Institutions

Stopping cyber threats from disrupting school systems and universities. 

87%

Eighty-seven percent of educational establishments have experienced at least one cyber-attack1.

$3.79 million

In 2021, the average cost per breach within the educational sector was $3.79 million2.

86%

Social engineering, system intrusion, and miscellaneous errors make up 86% of attacks on educational institutes3.

The education industry houses some of the most sensitive data, making it a regularly targeted sector by threat actors. Critical Start offers Managed Detection and Response services that detect the right threats, respond with the right actions, and provide the right agility and adaptability to stay ahead of emerging threats.

We equip educational institutions to protect student and employee data, optimize the time and efforts of their IT teams, improve security effectiveness, and reduce risk by reducing false positives by 90%, escalating less than 0.01% of alerts and resolving more than 99.9% of alerts.

  • Detecting the Right Threats

    During onboarding, we dive in deep to understand the customer’s environment and requirements so we can drive actionable insights from their existing tools. We adapt our playbooks to help tune out false positives and our Cyber Research Unit (CRU) curates original and third-party threat intel to develop new detections and IOCs. We also map IOCs to the MITRE ATT&CK® Framework for visibility into the customer’s detection coverage.


    Responding with the Right Actions

    We provide seasoned security analysts and one-of-a-kind technology to take action on the customer’s behalf or provide them with detailed response recommendations. Our U.S.-based Security Operations Center (SOC) provides 24x7x365 human-led monitoring, rapid investigation, continuous threat hunting and response. Our SOC analysts work with you until remediation is complete, leveraging real-time communication.


    Providing the Right Agility and Adaptability

    We help customers stay ahead of emerging threats and give their team the flexibility to work on strategic initiatives. Our SOC analysts undergo 300 hours of onboarding training, followed by 60-80 hours of continuing education each year. And a dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM) ensures that our MDR customers receive the tools and support they need to succeed.

  • Protect

    Our Cyber Incident Response Team (CIRT) proactively works with our customers to understand their readiness to respond to a cyberattack and offers IR monitoring, IR retainers, Tabletop Exercises, Cybersecurity Readiness Assessment, IR Plan Review and Threat Hunting Training to help protect customers.


    Respond

    Leverage our CIRT to lead your team through critical stages of an incident. ZTAP and our SOC provide 24/7/365 threat hunting and response, and our Threat Hunting Training services prepare your own defenders to proactively identify malicious activity within your network and take appropriate action.


    Digital Forensics

    On-demand forensic investigators with experience in PCI-DSS, HIPAA and other protected governance standards for highly sensitive investigations offer forensic imaging and analysis, clear, concise and professional documentation, sound and confident courtroom testimony, and evidence handling procedures and documentation that directly align with NIST to ensure forensically sound results.

Zero Trust Analytics Platform™ (ZTAP®)

ZTAP is the backbone of our managed detection and response (MDR) services. Our Trusted Behavior Registry™ (TBR) within ZTAP enables us to auto-resolve false positives – the largest volume of alerts—at scale, and our SOC utilizes ZTAP to handle 100% of your alerts.

MOBILESOC®

Cybersecurity for the education industry needs on-the-go access. With our MobileSOC iOS/Android app, MDR customers can reduce attacker dwell-time from the palm of their hand. It goes far beyond ticketing and notifications by letting you triage and respond to alerts, so you never miss an event.

Making the Grade: Using MDR To Protect Schools From Cybersecurity Threats

From big universities to small school districts, educational institutions are facing increases in ransomware, phishing, DDoS and data breach attacks. At the same time budgets and resources are constrained. Learn how Managed Detection & Response (MDR) services protect institutions against cybersecurity threats 24/7/365.

Ready to Talk with an Expert?

1 “Cybersecurity in Education and Research Institutions,” StealthLabs, date of access: October 2021. https://www.stealthlabs.com/industries/education-research-institutions/

2 IBM Security Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021

3 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report 2021

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