Learn how Buena Vista University cut reporting time by 90% and gained control of sensitive data with Cyrisma

‍“Everybody does dashboards. I don’t need a reporting tool. I need something that’s going to move the needle, and Cyrisma does that.”

– Joseph McLain, CIO at Buena Vista University

| Challenge

BVU faced a combination of resource constraints and fragmented tools that left their security posture vulnerable.

• Limited staffing and budget
  With a small IT team and competing top priorities, BVU struggled to keep up with evolving security requirements.

• Tool sprawl
  Relied on multiple security tools, many underutilized, leading to inefficiency and higher costs.

• Inconsistent endpoint security
  No formal process for operating system hardening; endpoint security varied widely.

• Sensitive data exposure
  No comprehensive method to locate or remediate sensitive data scattered across endpoints, cloud storage, and archives.

• Reporting complexity
  Gathering security metrics for leadership required searching across multiple systems, taking significant time to prepare reports.
  ‍

| Solution

Cyrisma’s value was clear for BVU’s Team from day one: not just another dashboard, but a platform that delivered actionable capabilities to move the needle on security.

Cyrisma covered key areas that BVU needed:

• All-in-one platform
  Consolidated multiple tools into a single solution providing 80% coverage depth across all security needs.

• Actionable intelligence
  Directly assign and track mitigation plans with data owners to ensure accountability.

• Comprehensive data discovery
  Scan endpoints, archives, and cloud services to find high-risk data such as Social Security numbers.

• Cultural transformation
  Enabled a “shift left” approach where every account holder shares responsibility for cybersecurity.

• Customer-driven development
  Cyrisma team actively incorporates user feedback, adding features like executive-level mitigation plan visibility.

| Results

Rapid adoption

• Within 2 months of deployment, BVU was using Cyrisma to full capacity.
• Every employee received an onboarding session and personalized mitigation plans.

Tool consolidation

• Replaced up to 6 separate security tools
• Achieved broad horizontal coverage with the right level of depth in each security domain

Security improvements

• Using Cyrisma’s secure baseline scans, BVU immediately began hardening endpoints and saw the improvement in their Microsoft Security scores
• Cyrisma helped BVU discover and secure sensitive data that had been stored for decades.

Operational efficiency

• Reduced reporting time by >90%
• Streamlined onboarding by delivering targeted 1-hour sessions timed to real mitigation assignments

Operational efficiency

• Security awareness has become part of everyday decision-making across the university
• Executive leadership uses Cyrisma metrics in annual board presentations
  ‍

“We’ve implemented a tool that really works for us. Instead of just letting us know how worried we should be, it enables us to take action.”

– Joseph McLain, CIO at Buena Vista University

______

About Buena Vista University (BVU)

In 2000, BVU became the nation’s first “wireless community” when it provided laptops to all full-time students and faculty on the Storm Lake campus with the ability to connect to the campus-wide wireless network.

‍