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By Cisco Systems

In a university environment the need for security must be balanced with the need for academic freedom; those challenges are complex. The VCU network itself is far-flung and complex, stretching across two campuses, encompassing more than 140 buildings, 1800 network switches, more than 500 servers, and more than 42,000 users. Portions of the network connect with a large regional medical campus, meaning that many network segments must comply with strict data security regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and industry requirements such as protection of copyrighted materials. In addition, several areas of the university deal with credit card transactions and must meet Payment Card Industry (PCI) requirements. Although the university had long employed strong perimeter security, mitigating the risk from internal threats was a constant challenge.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY

• Industry: Higher Education
• Location: Richmond, Virginia, United States
• Number of Users: 42,000

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

• Balance need for academic openness with need to protect information and assets
• Reduce attacks, infections, and malicious code
• Improve efficiency of IT security personnel

NETWORK SOLUTION

• Deployed Cisco security solutions that require all network end-points to comply with university security policies, and allow staff to rapidly identify and respond to threats

BUSINESS RESULTS

• Huge drop in infections on the network
• Dramatic reduction in time and resources required to respond to security issues
• Improved auditing and reporting capabilities streamline regulatory compliance