Identity Security in Higher Education: Building Cyber-Resilient Campuses

Identity security in higher education has become a critical concern. Universities are facing rising numbers of cyberattacks targeting both student and faculty data. Limited cybersecurity budgets, aging infrastructure, and inconsistent access controls make it difficult to protect personally identifiable information (PII), leaving these institutions vulnerable to escalating cyber threats.

These limitations also make it challenging to remain current on cybersecurity initiatives and mitigate emerging threats. As a result, cybersecurity inadvertently takes a back seat, forcing higher education organizations to operate at a risk level they’re not comfortable with.

But identity security in higher education doesn’t have to be complicated. There are simple improvements organizations can take advantage of that will raise their security awareness and posture significantly:

1. Address the human element

2. Adopt Zero Trust and least privilege controls

3. Build a strong foundation needed to defend against modern cyberattacks

In this blog, I explore these three foundational steps institutions can take bring their identity security strategies to a higher level and build more cyber-resilient campuses.

Even as cybersecurity in higher education advances, many institutions rely on dozens of tools that create a false sense of protection. On average, organizations deploy more than 80 security solutions, yet these systems detect only 50% of the breaches they are designed to stop.

Why is this happening? Because more tools don’t equal more security. They equal more complexity. While increasing the number of security solutions may seem like the best way to target more threats, each solution comes with its own rules, alerts, and integrations to manage. Instead of working with all of the other security solutions, they often fail to integrate or interact, leaving blind spots between systems that threat actors can navigate through unseen.

As a result, organizations often end up with a ton of wasted resources, fragmented visibility, and, since each tool not only introduces a new potential entry point but also dilutes security focus, a rapidly expanding attack surface mired in convolution and risk.

For universities already juggling limited resources and decentralized IT environments, this is dangerous.

This 50% gap is a clear sign that we can all do better, but the path to stronger cybersecurity lies in simplification, visibility, and identity-centered control, not in adding more tools.

1) Addressing The Human Element: Strengthening Identity Security Through Awareness

Humans are single-handedly the weakest link in any cybersecurity program. This isn’t a condemnation; it’s an opportunity that we can act on. The success of any cybersecurity program is a reflection of the awareness and actions of every individual. Each of us should act as a firewall because we are the first line of defense when it comes to protecting our organization. Our actions, if uninformed, could prove detrimental to the organization.

Why Higher Education Is Particularly Vulnerable

For universities in particular, cybersecurity awareness should be a top priority, especially at the start of each school year, when universities welcome new students, faculty, and staff. Each individual brings an influx of accounts and access points, making them targets for threat actors and a potential entry point for phishing attacks, stolen passwords, identity theft, and more.

Universities are unlike traditional enterprises because they typically:

• Experience a high turnover of users each year as part of the typical cycle. Students join and graduate, and part-time faculty may change as often as each term, but their credentials often remain active far longer than they should.

• Manage large, decentralized networks, including research environments, shared labs, and personal devices that may not follow security best practices.

• Depend heavily on open collaboration, which can make enforcing access controls much more complex.

These complexities are well-known to be uniquely common to higher education institutions, and they create the perfect storm of opportunity for attackers.

Further, with the added power of AI, these attacks have become harder to detect. Adversaries are creating attacks that make it impossible to separate perception from reality. This includes AI-powered voice and video deepfakes, flawless phishing emails, and more. But, with the right awareness and a little training, students, faculty, and staff can be armed with the basic knowledge to recognize and thwart these threats, avoiding the common pitfalls that lead to breaches.

2) Adopt Zero Trust and Least Privilege Controls

Identity security remains the most critical component of any defense strategy. For universities, this starts with gaining visibility into what identities exist and the privileges they have, then pivoting to how we protect them and the resources they access.

Implementing least privilege and zero trust together, not one or the other, or even both but treating them as separate efforts—significantly reduces the overall risk across campus networks, research environments, and administrative systems.

This foundational “blocking and tackling” is as simple as:

• Enforcing least privilege - Ensuring every account for every student, faculty member, contractor, or vendor has only the access necessary for its role and nothing more.

• Implementing zero trust verification - Ensuring that we verify every user, no matter what their role is within the university (student, staff, or vendor).

• Auditing privileged activity - Providing a layer of session management that records user activity for accessing sensitive resources. This allows for auditing and verification of actions if needed.

These foundational practices can play a significant role in safeguarding student records, intellectual property, and research data.

3) Build a Strong, Resilient Foundation with Identity Security

Identity security in higher education starts with a strong foundation. I cannot emphasize enough that organizations and universities need to take a long, hard look at their programs with this in mind.

To build this foundation, organizations need to revisit their basic identity hygiene best practices and ensure access controls, password policies, and identity lifecycle management are consistently applied across every department and system:

• Passwords and credentials must be rotated and updated regularly in accordance with best practices.

• Dormant or alumni accounts should promptly be deactivated to reduce unnecessary exposure.

• Authentication methods must be standardized and modernized, with MFA enforced across all platforms.

• Security tools need to be integrated for visibility, reducing overlap and the risk of missed alerts.

These foundational identity security techniques must be implemented well to create an agile and resilient foundation capable of responding to common threats. Without it, many universities and organizations are just waiting to be compromised.

While the journey of Identity security is long and broad, we can all do our part to help make a positive impact when it comes to cybersecurity, and that impact starts with you!

Click here to learn more about how universities can significantly improve their cyber resilience and protect what matters most: their students, staff, and research.