The Zero Trust Campus Is Here: A Guide to Securing the Future of Higher Education IT

Introduction: Why This Book Matters for Higher Education

Higher education has always been a space for innovation, collaboration, and intellectual progress—but as institutions increasingly rely on digital tools to enable their work, they face a growing number of complex cybersecurity challenges. From hybrid learning models and cloud migration to smart campus systems, the ways universities interact with data, users, and technology have fundamentally changed. Unfortunately, legacy IT systems haven’t kept pace with these advancements.

As campuses struggle with cyber threats, outdated architectures, and fragmented IT systems, the need for a comprehensive approach to security has never been clearer. Colleges and universities across the globe must look for new frameworks to safeguard sensitive data, scale efficiently, and enable collaboration. That’s why we, along with a team of Zscaler experts, helped author The Zero Trust Campus.

To further set the tone for this critical conversation, we are fortunate to have a powerful foreword written by Mark Silis, Former VP for Information Technology & Services at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). With decades of experience driving advancements at one of the world's leading institutions, Mark shares his insights on how innovation and cultural alignment are critical to addressing today’s security and operational challenges in higher education.

This book is both a roadmap and a resource for higher education IT leaders who are navigating today’s digital challenges. Whether you’re working to protect student data, support global research collaborations, or comply with evolving regulations, Zero Trust Architecture is the future of securing campuses. Today, we're excited to announce that The Zero Trust Campus is live for download.

What You’ll Learn from This Book

The Zero Trust Campus isn’t just about responding to the cybersecurity challenges we face today—it’s about preparing institutions for tomorrow. We wrote this book to provide actionable solutions, practical frameworks, and insights for leaders looking to modernize their IT infrastructures. Here are a few key areas we explore:

Cyber Threats: Why Higher Education Is a Prime Target

Universities are facing more advanced and targeted cyber threats than ever before. Ransomware attacks, phishing schemes, and data breaches have become a daily reality for institutions housing sensitive academic records, financial data, and proprietary research findings. According to IBM’s 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report, the average cost of a breach in higher education stands at $3.8 million—a figure that escalates when factoring in reputational damage and loss of enrollment.

Additionally, findings from Zscaler’s ThreatLabz 2025 Ransomware Report underline just how vulnerable the education sector has become: The education sector experienced a 25.8% year-over-year increase with 273 victims listed on data leak sites between April 2024-April 2025. It remains a top 10 target and a focal point for ransomware groups, with student records and research environments being prime targets. These attacks often exploit outdated infrastructures, creating cascading risks across campus systems.

In the book, we explain how Zero Trust minimizes vulnerabilities like lateral movement, phishing risks, and endpoint exposure. Zero Trust ensures that no user, device, or application can access campus systems without granular verification, effectively shutting off the attack vectors cybercriminals exploit on traditional networks.

(Sources: IBM's 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report; Zscaler ThreatLabz 2025 Ransomware Report)

Modernizing IT Infrastructure

Many universities operate on legacy IT systems built around hub-and-spoke network architectures, traditional perimeter defenses, and outdated VPNs. These environments might have worked 20 years ago when users and applications were confined to campus systems—but today’s landscape is distributed, mobile, and reliant on cloud-hosted technologies. Zero Trust addresses the limitations of these legacy systems by focusing not on securing perimeter-based networks, but the users and devices accessing critical applications.

With Zero Trust, institutions can replace fragmented, static infrastructures with scalable solutions that empower hybrid classrooms, secure IoT-enabled devices, and enable collaboration across global research teams—all while reducing complexity and improving cost efficiency.

Fostering Collaboration and Innovation

Higher education thrives on connectivity and collaboration—whether it’s professors sharing research findings across borders or students attending online courses from anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, traditional network architectures are not designed to facilitate this scale of seamless, secure interaction. Zero Trust enables universities to build an IT environment that prioritizes flexibility, scalability, and high performance without compromising on security.

The book explores how universities can adopt Zero Trust to enable instant, secure access to SaaS platforms, research databases, and learning management systems—wherever users may be. By eliminating bottlenecks and ensuring sensitive systems remain protected, Zero Trust helps higher education institutions fulfill their mission of enabling innovation.

Why Zero Trust Is the Future

As the former Chief Information Security Officer for the State of Illinois, I’ve seen firsthand how traditional approaches to security leave organizations vulnerable to modern cyber threats. Universities face even greater challenges than most industries because their environments demand a balance between openness, collaboration, and privacy. The principles of Zero Trust are perfectly suited to this reality.

Zero Trust assumes no user, device, or application can be trusted by default—even if they appear to be “within the network.” This framework operates on fundamental pillars:

• Least privilege access, ensuring users only access systems and data relevant to their role.
• Continuous identity verification, applying granular authentication for every access request.
• Context-aware policies, allowing institutions to incorporate device type, location, and user activity into their access management framework.

With these principles in place, Zero Trust ensures sensitive academic data is protected from unauthorized access and internal or external threats. What’s more, Zero Trust doesn’t disrupt collaboration or institutional culture—it supports it by enabling secure, seamless access tailored to higher education’s unique needs.

Institutions that begin adopting Zero Trust today will be better positioned to scale, innovate, and respond to evolving cyber risks in the years ahead.

Get Your Copy of The Zero Trust Campus

Whether you’re a CIO, CTO, or campus IT leader, The Zero Trust Campus provides the tools, insights, and frameworks you need to modernize IT, protect your institution, and position your campus for success. This book is designed to help higher education leaders:

• Understand the anatomy of modern cyber threats specific to campus environments.
• Replace inefficiencies in legacy IT systems with scalable, cloud-first solutions.
• Enable compliance with regulatory standards like FERPA and GDPR.
• Optimize IT operations while empowering faculty, researchers, and students.

Download Your Copy of The Zero Trust Campus Now!

We understand the critical role you play in protecting systems, data, and people across your institution. This book is meant to be your guide as you lead the way in building resilient, innovative technology environments for higher education.

Thank you for letting me and our team support your journey toward safer and smarter campus IT. Together, we can secure the future of higher education.