A New Mindset Improving Higher Education Cybersecurity
In higher education, effective purple teaming may require a new mindset — and a cultural shift among IT stakeholders.
“If you look at higher ed, there are clearly many internal factions and adversarial dynamics. It may be IT versus security, or there may be departmental politics,” says Will Ash, senior director of U.S. public sector security at Cisco. “Purple teams introduce a culture with a more constant flow of information, with teamwork between these different factions.”
For that to happen, senior leadership must set the tone. The provost, dean and CISO should make clear that security is inherently a collaborative effort. “All the teams need to focus on the higher purpose. They need to understand that the overall goal is to improve the organization’s cybersecurity posture,” Ash says. “Having a purple team in place can help put the collective focus on that goal.”