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Overview
Securing your IT environment to shape the future of education
Education is no longer confined to a lecture hall, a classroom, or a whiteboard. Through e-learning, students from all around the world can now pursue degrees at various universities and schools from the comfort of their homes. The internet has brought together students, professors, and educational institutions, transforming the modern classroom into an e-learning hub.
The convergence of on-campus and e-learning environments, introduces a multitude of IT challenges. Balancing the diverse needs of students, teachers, and guest lecturers accessing resources from various locations, whether on campus or remotely, poses unique security risks. IT administrators grapple with ensuring seamless onboarding and offboarding of students and staff, and securing access to digital content, collaboration tools, and online file-sharing systems, all while safeguarding their institutions' sensitive information. This evolving landscape demands a strategic approach to IT security, addressing the complexities arising from the dynamic nature of modern education.
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identity risk assessmentNavigate user management amid diverse academic transitions
Navigating the multifaceted landscape of educational institutions introduces a spectrum of IT challenges related to user role management. In this dynamic environment, the time-based lifecycle management of user roles becomes a pivotal concern. With students transitioning through academic phases, faculty and staff undergoing changes in responsibilities, and guest lecturers making temporary appearances, maintaining accurate and timely user role assignments becomes complicated. AD360 rises to this challenge, offering a comprehensive solution that enables IT administrators to seamlessly orchestrate the intricate changes of user roles. This includes efficient time-based lifecycle management, ensuring that users have appropriate access during specific periods, streamlining user transitions, and upholding the institution's stringent security standards throughout.
- Eliminate redundancy and reduce manual interventions by creating multiple orchestration profiles to automate the onboarding of user accounts when a student, faculty member, or staff joins or leaves the institution.
- Integrate with human resource management systems (Zoho People, UltiPro, BambooHR, and Workday) and external databases (Microsoft SQL and Oracle Database) to automate Active Directory user provisioning and de-provisioning.
- Mitigate security risks linked to dormant accounts through automated AD cleanup operations. Promptly revoke access to user accounts and associated roles when a student graduates or a staff member departs from the institution.
- For guest lecturers or external collaborators, enable the automatic removal of temporary access once the specified time period expires, enhancing security and compliance.
Empower educational integrity through data protection
Educational institutions are faced with the challenge of safeguarding sensitive information, encompassing students' and staff bio-data, examination and research papers, IPs, and financial data. With its comprehensive data protection features, AD360 tackles this challenge by preventing unauthorized access and potential breaches that could compromise the integrity and confidentiality of the institution's invaluable data.
- Implement granular access controls to define and manage user permissions with precision. This ensures that only authorized students and staff have access to specific academic resources, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access.
- Leverages real-time threat detection mechanisms, including machine learning capabilities, to identify and alert administrators about any inappropriate access to examination papers, IPs, and other confidential data.
- Generate in-depth reports on users' behavior, access permissions, and compliance status, streamlining the audit process and providing clear evidence of adherence to regulatory requirements within the educational sector.
Ensure secure password practices in a learning environment
A significant challenge stems from users struggling to create and manage robust, unique passwords. Students and staff may opt for weak passwords or engage in the risky practice of password reuse, elevating the risk of unauthorized access and compromising the institution's security. The surge in forgotten passwords worsens the situation, leading to a spike in helpdesk requests. This operational challenge overwhelms support teams, diverting their attention and resources from other high priority IT tasks. AD360 addresses these challenges by implementing robust self-service password management features. It promotes the creation of strong, unique passwords, discourages reuse, and streamlines password recovery processes, reducing the surge in helpdesk requests.
- Enhance operational efficiency by providing a comprehensive self-service password reset (SSPR) solution, empowering staff and students to independently reset or recover passwords and minimizing reliance on helpdesk support.
- Fortify access to campus portals and learning platforms with Adaptive multi-factor authentication (MFA), ensuring dynamic authentication protocols and personalized access experiences for students within the academic environment.
- Enable students and staff to update their local cached credentials seamlessly after a remote password reset, ensuring uninterrupted access to learning resources.
- Mitigate user authentication risks by implementing robust password policies, fostering the creation of strong, unique passwords while prioritizing a user-friendly experience for students and staff.
- Streamline user access across various applications with single sign-on (SSO) capabilities, simplifying the login process for students and staff. Foster a seamless and efficient user experience by eliminating the need for multiple credentials, enhancing accessibility and productivity.
Audit-ready compliance reporting
In the dynamic realm of educational institutions, compliance with policies like FERPA and COPPA poses challenges. Managing vast amounts of sensitive information, from academic records to personal data, becomes complex. Diverse user roles, including students, faculty, and administrative staff, add layers to maintaining data regulation adherence. The potential consequences of non-compliance, such as legal ramifications and reputational damage, emphasize the need for robust compliance reporting systems. Timely and accurate reporting is crucial for fulfilling regulatory requirements and building trust among stakeholders, including students, parents, and regulatory bodies. In this landscape, AD360 facilitates a seamless approach to compliance management by providing customizable reporting templates, generating detailed compliance reports, and enabling real-time monitoring with proactive alerts.
- Generate detailed compliance reports to gain timely and accurate insights into compliance measures, thereby building confidence in the institution's commitment to data protection and regulatory adherence.
- Utilize workflow features to establish a structured hierarchy of approvals necessary for automation completion. This not only minimizes the potential for errors but also establishes a ticket-based method, allowing institutions to safeguard the data of students and faculty, and be compliant with FERPA and COPPA regulations.
- Streamline compliance management through customizable reporting templates, and implement robust reporting systems for real-time monitoring, ensuring timely identification and mitigation of compliance risks.
Solution
Manage workforce identities seamlessly
Streamline workforce identity management effortlessly with a unified console, taking command over diverse processes that delineate identity and access management in the education sector.
Automate identity processes efficiently
Automate intricate process chains related to identity management, including user provisioning, modification, and de-provisioning, streamlining administrative tasks in educational institutions.
Enable flexible remote workforce
Facilitate a versatile work-from-anywhere experience for educators and staff with context-specific security measures tailored to the unique needs of educational settings.
Enforce scalable IT policies
Define and implement scalable IT policies across every endpoint, ensuring a secure and compliant environment for students, faculty, and administrative staff.
Ensure secure conditional access
Set predefined conditions to ensure only authorized users within educational institutions have access to machines, applications, and various features, enhancing security with AD360.
Leverage identity analytics for security
Leverage machine learning (ML)-based algorithms to continuously monitor user activity in educational settings, promptly acting upon anomalous instances to enhance overall security.
Achieve granular backup and recovery
Achieve granular-level process continuity in a few clicks, allowing for quick recovery from accidental occurrences without disrupting the productivity of the educational workforce.
Prepare for cyber insurance
Fulfill the prerequisites of cyber insurance by leveraging AD360's capabilities, including MFA and IT reporting, to enhance the cybersecurity posture of educational institutions.
Ensure business continuity
Restore critical operations and assets with minimal downtime, reducing the impact of unprecedented disruptions on the educational environment.
Regulate access control
Control user permissions within educational environments, adapting them as needed to uphold the security and operational efficiency of the academic setting.
Implement seamless single sign-on (SSO)
Unify authentication by enabling one-click access across educational applications, mitigating the need for multiple user identities and enhancing user experience.
Password policy enforcement
Uphold credential integrity and hygiene within educational institutions by crafting and implementing strict, well-refined password policies with AD360.
Enhance security with adaptive MFA
Adjust authentication options in educational environments by evaluating situational factors, including geolocation, device type, and logon failures.
Deliver efficient hybrid IAM
Provide an integrated and cohesive IAM experience spanning on-premises, cloud, and hybrid deployments designed to meet the specific requirements of the education sector.
Integrate seamlessly for a dynamic ecosystem
Implement a cross-platform IAM stack that seamlessly integrates with diverse applications, creating a dynamic IT ecosystem tailored to the educational landscape.
Case studies
Harvard Medical School changes its auditing game with AD360
Established in 1782, Harvard is the third-oldest medical school in the United States. They’ve piloted educational models, developed new curricula to address emerging needs in health care, and produced thousands of leaders and compassionate caregivers who are shaping the fields of science and medicine throughout the world with their expertise and passion.
"Prior to AD360, we had no visibility into our AD infrastructure. Now we’re able to monitor all AD transactions as far as group changes, User creation, security, authentication logs and much more."
- Callixtus Muanya, Windows administratorBusiness challenges
With approximately 12,000 voting and full-time faculty and more than 2,000 students, both on campus and at affiliating premises, the Active Directory (AD) infrastructure was far too vast to be closely monitored. Callixtus Muanya, Harvard's Windows administrator could not keep up with the many changes across multiple domains and felt like he had no visibility into his own territory.
How AD360 helped
Every change made across multiple sites and domains, even small tweaks, is brought together in with AD360's reports. These reports are grouped by category with individual views for changes made to AD objects, authentication logs, security modifications, and user account manipulation.
Read the full storySee how AD360's delegation capabilities power the IT of the American Council on Education
With members totaling over 1,700 colleges and universities, the American Council on Education (ACE) is a membership organization that mobilizes the higher education community to shape effective public policy.
"AD360has been effortless to use. The support has been helpful and is just an email away in case you need assistance. The overall experience has been positive."
- Callixtus Muanya, Windows administratorBusiness challenges
The IT team realized they were spending a substantial amount of time on repetitive IT tasks that could easily be automated. The team also found it cumbersome to manage their Exchange server's distribution list.
How AD360 helped
ACE leveraged the Active Directory Management module of AD360, which offers integrated AD, Exchange, Office 365, and Google Workspace management and reporting.
Read the full storyAD360 ensures that Emmanuel College's employees can reset passwords without IT intervention
With more than 2,200 undergraduate and graduate students, Emmanuel College nurtures its students through rigorous coursework, internship and career opportunities, collaboration with distinguished and dedicated faculty, and participation in a dynamic campus community.
"[AD360] really puts the power in the end user's hands...while also giving a lot of oversight options to the people administering the systems"
- Callixtus Muanya, Windows administratorBusiness challenges
Emmanuel College needed an IAM solution that was not only intuitive but also secure. The college was in dire need of a solution that would address password reset and provide secure login processes while ensuring a smooth transition and a minimal learning curve.
How AD360 helped
The organization opted for the AD password self-service module of AD360, which also offers integrated MFA and SSO.
Read the full storyDavidson County Community College keeps misconfigurations at bay with AD360
Davidson County Community College (DCCC) is a multi-campus, public, two-year higher-education institution. The Davidson and Davie Campus strive to address the community’s economic development and providing individual, private and corporate support for students, facilities and instructional equipment.
"A misconfigured antivirus client was trying to authenticate, kept failing and was filling up the log files. With AD360 we found the computer and it is protected."
- Callixtus Muanya, Windows administratorBusiness challenges
DCCC had their disk full with log files and this posed a major security threat to its IT ecosystem. They needed a tool to find the root cause.
How AD360 helped
The institution decided on using AD360, whose ML-powered user behavior analytics provide a comprehensive view of user activities.
Read the full storyManageEngine named a 2023 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Identity Governance and Administration
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