Higher Education is Under Siege by Attackers Forcing IT Teams to Strengthen Frontlines
IRVINE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#IAM–SecureAuth, an identity security leader, and Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS), a leading liberal arts and sciences institution, announce their continued committed partnership to secure the research data, employees and students.
The Hobart and William Smith Colleges IT security and infrastructure team started a gradual move of critical college applications from their traditional on-prem locations into the cloud. This transition increased HWS’ focus on user identities, creating a new challenge for the IT security and infrastructure team. The expansion of user access, along with the heightened threat of data breaches and ransomware, required different authentication methods to increase the overall security posture of user identities. The team knew they needed a flexible, federated solution that would scale, helping them address the evolving security demands. Through the discovery process, the IT security team honed-in on multi-factor authentication (MFA) to be the default login standard, and selected SecureAuth Identity Platform to consolidate and future-proof their authentication process.
“What we liked about SecureAuth is that we could get federation, self-service password management and multi-factor authentication in one product as well as have the ability to go to one source for support,” said Derek Lustig, Director of Infrastructure and Security Services at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
“SecureAuth collaborated with us to deliver a flexible MFA for our RADIUS endpoints, SAML and OpenID apps, combined with SSO and user self-service while still working well with WS-Fed and WS-Trust – a key differentiator for us,” said Jason Shomper, Infrastructure and Identity Architect at HWS.
HWS required multiple MFA options as demand for mobile access rose and more applications were transitioning to the cloud. Initial user hesitancy to MFA required a solution flexible enough to tailor the authentication journey to provide friction only for high-risk login attempts. In addition, SecureAuth partnered with HWS to develop a custom PeopleSoft Authenticator, which saved time and reduced much of the complexity.
“Their robust roll out and transition to MFA resulted in a successful implementation that led to 100 percent end user adoption across their more than 2,000 undergraduate students, staff, and faculty,” said Matt Ulery, Chief Product Officer at SecureAuth. “We are partnering with Hobart and William Smith Colleges as they look toward secure passwordless user journeys.”
“As a matter of fact, we put in place always-on MFA for our systems that house sensitive or restricted data. We are on this journey of migrating and better protecting applications and resources. SecureAuth continues to give us options and the ability to fine-tune our approach to authentication, depending upon the system that it is protecting and the audience that is using it,” said Lustig.
About Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Founded as Hobart College in 1822 and William Smith College in 1908, today’s Hobart and William Smith Colleges share a proud and storied legacy that spans nearly 200 years of leadership and impact — including alumna Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, who, in 1849, became the first American woman to receive a medical degree from Hobart’s precursor, Geneva Medical College. The Colleges are a future-focused liberal arts and sciences institution led by a faculty of accessible teacher/scholars known for the impact of their research and distinguished by the depth of their mentorship.
About SecureAuth Corporation
SecureAuth is an identity security company that enables the most secure and flexible authentication experience for employees, partners and customers. Delivered as a service and deployed across cloud, hybrid and on-premises environments, SecureAuth manages and protects access to applications, systems and data at scale, anywhere in the world. To find out more, please visit www.secureauth.com.
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Contacts
Media Relations Contact:
Joan Fronske
Director, Corporate Communications
SecureAuth
[email protected]
Mary LeClair
Associate Vice President of Communications
Hobart William and Smith Colleges
[email protected]
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