Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Higher education institutions don’t run on a single vendor ecosystem. They run on dozens of overlapping ones. Teaching, research, identity, payments, student services, cloud infrastructure, alumni engagement, and campus operations all rely on different third-party vendors. These often enter the institution through departments and administrative teams before InfoSec becomes aware of them. This is the operational reality that higher education TPRM software addresses.

Higher education institutions are the most targeted sector for cyberattacks. Yet the teams responsible for managing that risk often face a structural disadvantage: they’re accountable for a vendor ecosystem they can’t fully see. Academic autonomy and the scale of university operations mean that vendors enter the institution through departments, research groups, and administrative teams before InfoSec has full visibility. This challenge is built into how higher education operates.

Network outages are still painfully expensive, and configuration mistakes are one of the biggest culprits. A 2023 analysis of Uptime Institute data shows that configuration and change management failures are the top cause of major network outages, responsible for around 45% of network incidents. Even a small configuration slip on a core switch can cascade into large-scale downtime. That’s why consistent, well-governed network device management is key to keeping business services uninterrupted.

Top tips is a weekly column where we highlight what's trending in the tech world and list practical ways to explore these trends. This week, we are tackling something almost everyone does without thinking twice: connecting to public Wi-Fi (and what it could be costing you without you ever knowing). You are at an airport, a coffee shop, or a hotel lobby. You notice your data plan is running low and scroll through the available networks. And there it is: Free Wi-Fi—no password required.