Protecting Education Institutions with Community Intelligence and Sector-Wide Rapid Response – A HEITSA Cyber Security Update

*HEITSA press release [11 July, 2023]

Speaking to our members, “could we be breached” is no longer the view shared amongst the university community, it’s more a case of “what to do when we get breached?” accepting that it most likely will happen at some point.

This view, along with results from previous higher education cyber security surveys where incident response, ransomware and data leakages were top priorities, is driving institutions to focus on ensuring that the right security tools, configurations, processes and resources are in place and always available to identify, respond to, protect and prevent cyber-attacks.

To help the higher education sector community address the challenges around choosing a suitable, scalable and affordable cyber security service that provides 24×7 threat detection, response, protection and prevention, we carried out market research and due diligence to find a suitable service provider.

We are pleased to announce that we now have a new cyber security framework for an enhanced 24x7x365 Security Operations Centre solution portfolio offered by KHIPU.

Key reasons why KHIPU were chosen include:

• Their SOC services have been designed and are continually developed in partnership with universities. Not just an alerting SIEM-type solution, they provide immediate response, detection and blocking of cyber-attacks
• Extensive university references as proof of their capabilities to provide round the clock cyber protection with FREE incident response capabilities
• Affordable and scalable – we have negotiated a range of services allowing universities of any size to start their 24×7 SOC journey
• Cyber security training offered to university staff to become security operations centre certified
• It’s a community-driven service that operates by leveraging a combination of intelligence from multiple global threat feeds and data drawn from universities. By taking this approach, KHIPU proactively communicate and protect against highly sophisticated threats to every customer subscribed, as well as raise awareness of unusual behaviour

“We are very pleased to have negotiated a range of SOC services that we believe are affordable for our members at a time where round the clock cyber protection is needed. Having spoken to customers who are using KHIPU’s services, we have done our due diligence to ensure they can deliver on expectations.”

Val Theron, General Manager, HEITSA

“Having worked in partnership with many universities across South Africa, we have learnt how to continually develop our cyber security portfolio to meet their ever-changing requirements. Our community-driven approach gives us the ability to rapidly mitigate threats sector wide – where our ‘safety in numbers’ strategy brings universities together as the overall common goal is to continually improve the sector’s cyber security posture, security operations and efficiencies.

 Nicole Kotton, Regional Sales Manager – Sales Africa, KHIPU

“After an extensive review of the market and available Security Operation Centre (SOC) services, we chose KHIPU due to their experience within the sector and capabilities to be able to monitor, detect, protect and prevent threats 24x7x365 across our multi-campus estate. Using the HEITSA Framework made the overall investment significantly lower than the other service provider offerings that we considered.”

Hement Gopal, Information Security, WITS

Register Your Interest

Find out more about this new SOC framework, including the services available, what’s included and request a cost proposal >

The SOC Diaries Webinar Series

We are also hosting a series of webinars explaining more about the services and customers using them including:

• The HEITSA SOC Framework – what is it, what is included and costs
• 24×7 Community SOC Service – What does it mean to the South African Education Sector
• SOC Service Demonstration – including Incident Response real-life stories across the education sector

Reserve your space on the next webinar or request a date for a 1:1 >

Alternatively, contact us by completing the form below.