In response to evolving security threats, ITS worked with IT partners across campus to deploy CrowdStrike Falcon, replacing Windows Defender and Sophos. Falcon offers more advanced protection than traditional antivirus, with a significantly lower performance impact. It gives Information Assurance a university-wide view of alerts, but allows for the administration and alerting to be delegated to units which provides visibility and the ability to rapidly follow-up locally.
This shared visibility enables more efficient and effective collaboration between unit IT staff and ITS IA when responding to detections and allows for quicker response to potential threats. Partners across all campuses, and more recently Michigan Medicine, worked quickly to deploy CrowdStrike Falcon to their systems allowing us to immediately realize the benefits of the platform.
This deployment was particularly timely, given the rise in attacks throughout the pandemic, particularly those involving ransomware. An additional benefit as a CrowdStrike customer is access to their threat intelligence data and dedicated researchers that follow the latest threat activity. CrowdStrike analysts will share updates on the ransomware landscape as well as how Falcon fits as one layer of protection against ransomware attacks. Finally, as the leading higher ed partner, U-M Crowdstrike administrators get access to briefings, trainings, and other resources at no extra charge.