American University jettisons signatures and open-source tools for network detection and response
Challenge
Protect public cloud, data centers and campus networks
Selection criteria
A platform that allowed them to process and analyze data quickly.
Results
American University faced challenges with open-source tools and signature-based intrusion detection, creating operational burdens and lacking visibility into internal network activities.
To address these challenges, the university adopted Vectra's Threat Detection and Response (TDR) platform, leveraging Security AI-driven Attack Signal Intelligence for automatic detection, triage, and prioritization of in-progress attack behaviors across cloud, SaaS, identity, and network data centers.
The Vectra AI platform significantly reduced the workload for security analysts, shifting Tier-2 tasks to Tier-1, and decreasing response time by approximately 20%. The platform's stability and ease of maintenance, compared to the previous open-source solution, improved overall efficiency. Vectra's Attack Signal IntelligenceTM provided insights into attack behaviors, enabling faster and more conclusive investigations, while integration with third-party security solutions enhanced end-to-end threat management and visibility.
“Intrusion detection requires a security analyst to sift through volumes of signature hits,” Weakland continues. “And it doesn’t give you visibility into what’s happening inside the network.”
“One thing that really excites us about partnering with Vectra AI are solutions for Azure and AWS. This will give us the same visibility into cloud services that we’re getting in our campus and data center.”