Making CIS Benchmarks for Higher Education Work at Campus Scale
Amid escalating cyberattacks, colleges and universities are under increasing pressure to mature their cybersecurity programs to protect their financial, research, intellectual property and personal data. More and more, they are using CIS Benchmarks as a comprehensive, practical and vendor-neutral standard for hardening endpoints campus-wide.
The real hurdle, however, is not choosing a secure configuration standard. It is applying that standard consistently and maintaining it in a large, decentralized environment where every campus, department, lab and endpoint can introduce another variation.
That distinction is key. Colleges and universities may have a central cybersecurity team setting policy, but dozens of departments and campuses may operate their own systems, applications, devices and workflows.
CIS Benchmarks can provide the common baseline across campus systems. The challenge is turning that baseline into an operational program that works for all those differing needs.
CIS Benchmarks for Higher Education: The Short Version
Adopting CIS Benchmarks for higher education is less a question of which standard to choose than of how to operate it across a decentralized campus. Four points frame the rest of this guide.
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The standard is the easy part
Colleges are adopting CIS Benchmarks as a vendor-neutral hardening standard. The hurdle is applying it consistently across a decentralized campus environment.
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Decentralization is the real constraint
Central security teams set policy, but individual campuses, departments and labs run their own systems — and every variation invites configuration drift.
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One baseline supports many obligations
A single CIS Benchmarks baseline provides technical safeguards that map to GLBA, PCI DSS, NIST CSF 2.0, FERPA and NIST SP 800-171.
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Automation makes it operational
Continuous scanning, remediation and enforcement turn a set of recommendations into a security program lean IT teams can actually sustain.
10 Reasons Why Universities Are High-Value Targets
From ransomware and data theft to an epidemic of ghost students, colleges and universities are a prime target for hackers. As a result, collaborative, centralized cybersecurity is the #1 priority in this year’s EDUCAUSE Top 10.
Higher education is so appealing because a single institution may hold student records, financial information, payment-card data, financial-aid information, employee records, health information, partner data and valuable research data, all of which is fertile ground for hackers looking for a generous payday. In fact, the median ransomware demand in the US is now over $400K.
And that’s just the ransom. The overall toll of recovery from an attack averages more than $4M in the US before you factor in the regulatory and reputational exposure.
At the same time, higher education networks are designed to be accessible. Students, faculty, researchers, staff, guests, contractors and partners all need access to campus resources. Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programs and remote learning add yet another layer of complexity.
The result is an environment where attackers can find multiple pathways to valuable information.
Some of the considerations creating high risk in higher ed include:
- Limited IT budgets — Security teams may have fewer dedicated cybersecurity resources and less capacity to replace aging infrastructure.
- Decentralized systems and shadow IT — Individual departments or campuses may deploy applications and infrastructure outside centralized security processes.
- Outdated infrastructure — Legacy systems can be difficult to patch or harden without disrupting academic or administrative functions.
- Worthwhile data — Large user populations and valuable data make education attractive to financially motivated attackers.
- Cybersecurity staffing shortages — Lean teams are being asked to protect increasingly large and complex environments.
- Increasing compliance requirements — Institutions may need to address multiple regulatory and contractual obligations simultaneously.
- Third-party vendor risk — Universities depend heavily on software and cloud providers, increasing the importance of supply-chain security.
- Weak or inconsistent identity and access controls — Decentralization can make it difficult to apply policies consistently.
- Endpoint sprawl — Laptops, desktops, lab systems, servers, remote devices and specialized equipment multiply the number of systems requiring protection.
- Lack of continuous monitoring — A system that was secure during yesterday's assessment may not remain secure after today's software update or administrator change.
The combination of valuable information and constrained resources makes configuration security particularly important. Universities need security controls that can be applied broadly without requiring a security specialist to manually configure every machine.
What are CIS Benchmarks?
CIS Benchmarks are a consensus-developed, secure-configuration roadmap published by the Center for Internet Security (CIS). They cover over 100 benchmarks across more than 25 vendor product families, including operating systems, cloud platforms, network devices, databases, desktop software and server software.
While often mentioned in the same breath as the DoD-focused Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs), CIS Benchmarks deliver a more practical, right-sized approach for higher ed with two primary security profiles:
Level 1
This practical starting point results in a baseline that can be implemented relatively quickly, with the goal of reducing your attack surface without significantly affecting system usability or performance.
Level 2
This goes further for defense-in-depth environments where security is paramount. However, some recommendations can affect functionality, especially if they are implemented without considering the applications and business requirements of the system.
For most higher-education environments, that distinction is useful. Not every workstation, research system or laboratory instrument needs exactly the same configuration. CIS Benchmarks provide the baseline. The institution determines how that baseline should be applied.
Applying CIS Benchmarks Consistently Across Diverse Environments
So far it all sounds straightforward… until you consider the environment at scale.
A university system may have a central IT organization, plus separate teams supporting individual campuses, colleges, departments, laboratories or research programs. A community-college system may have several geographically dispersed campuses, each with their own operational requirements.
Likewise, your endpoint population can be just as diverse. There may be standard administrative workstations alongside:
- Classroom computers
- Computer labs
- Faculty workstations
- Student devices
- Windows and macOS endpoints
- Linux systems
- Servers
- Research systems
- Specialized applications
- Medical or scientific equipment
- BYOD devices
- Remote systems
The problem is not simply that there are many endpoints. It is that those endpoints do not all behave the same way. Without centralized visibility and enforcement, every variation becomes another opportunity for configuration drift.
Using CIS Benchmarks to Support Multiple Security Frameworks and Obligations
One of the advantages of establishing a CIS Benchmarks baseline is that secure configuration is not an isolated cybersecurity activity.
CIS Benchmarks can help you implement technical safeguards that support multiple security and risk-management frameworks. They do not, by themselves, make you compliant with any particular regulation, but they can provide a common secure baseline that applies to many requirements, rather than creating a completely separate configuration program for every requirement.
| Framework or obligation | How CIS Benchmarks can help |
|---|---|
| GLBA Safeguards Rule | For the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) Safeguards Rule, CIS Benchmarks provide secure configuration practices and administrative, technical and physical safeguards for systems handling covered financial information. |
| PCI DSS | The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) explicitly requires secure configurations and protection of systems that store, process, or transmit payment-card data. |
| NIST CSF 2.0 | CIS Benchmarks provide concrete technical configuration practices that can help organizations implement and demonstrate outcomes within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0. |
| FERPA | CIS Benchmarks does not equate to Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) compliance, but secure configurations can contribute to the technical safeguards and access controls used to protect education records and personally identifiable information. |
| NIST SP 800-171 / CMMC | CIS Benchmarks provide the foundation research environments that handle Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) need for establishing the stronger controls of NIST SP 800-171. NIST 800-171 compliance is required for Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC). |
5 Steps to Rolling Out Secure Baselines Across All Campuses
The biggest mistake a university can make is treating CIS Benchmarks hardening as a single, institution-wide, all-at-once switch. A more practical approach is to establish a baseline and expand it incrementally without disrupting academics. Here is a simple 5-step plan you can follow.
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Step 1: Start with CIS Benchmarks Level 1
Begin with the systems that are the most standardized and easiest for you to control. Administrative workstations and common server configurations are often good starting points. CIS Benchmarks Level 1 provides a practical baseline designed to reduce attack surface while limiting operational disruption.
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Step 2: Pilot Before Expanding
Select representative systems from different campuses and departments. Your pilot then becomes a way to discover where the standard baseline needs controlled variation. Measure not only security improvement, but also operational impact. Here are some considerations:
- Did applications continue to work?
- Did performance change?
- Were there authentication problems?
- Did administrators discover undocumented dependencies?
- Which controls required exceptions?
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Step 3: Create a Golden Image
Once the configuration is validated, turn it into a standard image or baseline that can be deployed consistently. The goal is not necessarily to eliminate every local difference. Instead, establish a standard core where variations can be controlled. In other words, a campus may be allowed to add approved configurations for a specific application or research environment, but it should not independently redefine the institution's security baseline.
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Step 4: Document Exceptions
Research laboratories and specialized academic environments will inevitably create exceptions. The answer should not be to abandon the baseline. Instead, document the exception, identify the reason, define the affected systems, establish an owner and determine whether compensating controls are required. This creates an important distinction between known exceptions and unknown noncompliance.
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Step 5: Expand Campus by Campus
Once the baseline has been validated, expand it systematically. Central security teams can establish the policy while local IT teams retain enough flexibility to address legitimate operational requirements. The result is a model in which the institution operates from one security standard without pretending every endpoint is identical.
Maintaining Your Baseline and Combating Configuration Drift
Getting systems into compliance is only half the job. The other half is keeping them there.
Hardening is not a one-and-done job. Operating-system updates change settings. Administrators make changes. New software gets installed. Patching takes place. Systems are reimaged. Users receive new devices. And with each little change, your configuration can drift away from its secure baseline.
A point-in-time scan can tell you whether a system was compliant in the moment when it was scanned. It cannot guarantee that the system remains compliant afterward.
That creates a fundamental problem for large universities. If a security team scans thousands of endpoints once a quarter, it may have excellent documentation of historical compliance while still having limited visibility into the vulnerabilities present today.
And manual checklists do not solve that problem. Neither does an increasingly complicated collection of Group Policy Objects, scripts, spreadsheets and local procedures. Those approaches can work at small scale, but maintaining them across multiple campuses creates another layer of complexity for already stretched IT teams.
In order to avoid the consequences of drift, the goal should be to move from periodic alignment with CIS Benchmarks to continuous monitoring and alignment.
One Baseline, Every Campus
Automating CIS Benchmarks at Scale
So far we’ve identified numerous challenges that may seem overwhelming. How can you:
- Efficiently and effectively centralize numerous systems across multiple campuses?
- Enable each entity to customize policy and configurations?
- Continuously monitor your entire enterprise to combat drift?
- Meet multiple regulatory requirements without duplicating efforts?
- Do it all within your existing resource and budgeting constraints?
Automation is the answer. Another benefit of CIS Benchmarks is that they can be fully automated with a purpose-built, unified solution that scans, remediates, validates and reports from a single console.
In fact, the solution certified by CIS Benchmarks is designed to streamline the centralization process, eliminate roughly 90% of the human effort needed for remediation and not just detect drift, but continuously correct it.
SteelCloud ConfigOS MPO automates the implementation and maintenance of CIS Benchmarks and other hardened configuration policies. It can scan endpoints, remediate configuration issues, report system status, continuously enforce an established baseline and turn your CIS Benchmarks baseline into operational policy.
Perhaps most surprising is that you can implement both ConfigOS MPO and CIS Benchmarks in less than a semester. The solution is designed for environments with large endpoint populations, scanning thousands of endpoints in minutes, then automatically remediating them according to your policies.
For a university security team, that kind of scale changes the economics of configuration management. Instead of adding people every time the endpoint population grows, you can centralize policy and automate much of the repetitive work. The combination creates a more sustainable operating model that enables you to protect thousands of systems without disrupting your academic mission.
~90%
Of the human effort in remediation, eliminated
Thousands
Of endpoints scanned in minutes, then remediated
One semester
Is enough time to implement, start to finish
Protecting Your Data by Pairing CIS Benchmarks with Automation
For higher education, CIS Benchmarks offer something more valuable than another compliance checklist. They provide a common technical baseline that can be applied across a diverse technology environment.
That baseline can support security efforts related to financial information, payment systems, student records, enterprise cybersecurity programs and, where applicable, more stringent research environments involving CUI.
Choosing CIS Benchmarks is the easy part, though. The real challenge is applying it consistently across campuses, accommodating legitimate exceptions, documenting those exceptions and preventing configuration drift from gradually undoing your work.
For universities and community-college systems with decentralized environments and lean security teams, automation can turn CIS Benchmarks from a collection of recommendations into an operational security program.
And it can help level the playing field. Right now, many colleges and universities are bringing manual methods to a bot fight. Security risks and the technology behind them are growing more sophisticated with each passing day. Pairing CIS Benchmarks implementation with a solution that automates it fully can change the game.
Next steps? Learn more about CIS Benchmarks automation and schedule a free demo of ConfigOS MPO to see how this combination simplifies everything from scanning and remediation to continuous enforcement.
Turn CIS Benchmarks Into an Operational Program
Frequently Asked Questions
What are CIS Benchmarks and why do universities use them?
CIS Benchmarks are consensus-developed, secure-configuration recommendations from the Center for Internet Security. Universities use them to establish repeatable security baselines for operating systems, applications, servers, cloud platforms and other technologies.
Do CIS Benchmarks help with GLBA, PCI or FERPA compliance in higher education?
CIS Benchmarks do not make an institution compliant with GLBA, PCI DSS or FERPA by themselves. They can, however, provide technical configuration practices that support the security requirements within those broader obligations.
What's the difference between CIS Level 1 and Level 2 for a campus environment?
Level 1 is intended as a practical security baseline that reduces attack surface with limited operational impact. Level 2 provides additional defense-in-depth but can affect functionality, making it better suited to systems where stronger security requirements justify the additional operational considerations.
How do you apply a CIS baseline across multiple campuses and decentralized IT?
Start with standardized systems, pilot the baseline, create a validated golden configuration, document legitimate exceptions and expand systematically across campuses. Centralized policy management and automation can then help enforce the baseline consistently while allowing controlled local variation.
Should higher education use CIS Benchmarks or STIGs?
STIGs are tailored to the endpoints and configurations in the Department of Defense. CIS Benchmarks deliver a more practical, right-sized approach for higher education.
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