Building a Digital Fortress: The Indispensable Role of Security Visibility

For the education and research IT community, navigating today's cyberthreat landscape presents unique challenges. Our open, collaborative networks, diverse user bases, widespread BYOD, and specialized research equipment create vast and complex attack surfaces that strain traditional security measures. This session explains why comprehensive security visibility is no longer optional but foundational for protecting our institutions' missions and assets. We'll explore how achieving a clear, continuous understanding of every connected asset—from servers and student laptops to lab instruments and research sensors—is critical for effective risk management in the unique E&R environment. Learn how this visibility enables accurate vulnerability prioritization, allowing often resource-constrained IT teams to focus on genuine threats to sensitive research data, intellectual property, PII, and operational continuity, preventing alert fatigue. We will discuss strategies for achieving unified visibility across disparate campus networks, remote labs, and cloud services to enforce consistent security policies and eliminate blind spots common in decentralized university structures. Through practical examples relevant to E&R scenarios, this talk illustrates why investing in robust visibility is essential for securing our unique digital ecosystems against persistent and evolving cyberthreats.