A Pathway to Zero-Trust Security Architecture in Higher Education

Universities and colleges struggle to address a growing array of security and privacy challenges with a myriad of cyber-security solutions. Legacy security solutions are bolted on or forced into a mix of existing technologies, which only augments complexity for security staff that are frequently siloed or stretched beyond their limits. Intrinsic Security with a perspective of Zero-Trust architectures can help improve an institutions security posture. Even before the global pandemic, the evolution of networks in higher education have undergone remarkable change. Today the network boundaries are opaque and modern campus IT involves containers, serverless and cloud computing, mobile users, mobile applications, and mobile storage. These are all major disruptors of traditional security architectures. One of the fundamental precepts of zero trust is that the network is hostile, and that a user’s identity and data are the new border. The future of higher education information security is being realized now. A Zero Trust approach to security will facilitate greater control over access and authorization to applications and sensitive data without introducing unnecessary friction to educational and research experiences on campuses. The session will include a general overview of zero-trust architecture and a five pillar approach to create a zero-trust workspace.

Outcomes: Participants will: 1. Hear of new complexities facing security organizations and learn the opaque nature of the network boundaries. 2. Gain an understanding of Zero-Trust architectures and why they reflect an improved security posture. 3. Learn about the unique pathway to a Zero-Trust workspace and hear best practices from leading university CISOs.