Cyber threats are all around us and becoming more sophisticated every day, which means our defenses have to be quicker, smarter, and more coordinated. There have been far too many headlines involving phishing or ransomware attacks affecting big companies and industries. But what you don’t hear much about is how cyber criminals hit schools, hospitals, libraries, and other community anchor institutions. These important pillars in local communities urgently need better protection from today’s growing cyber threats.

In response, MCNC has launched Vital Cyber (mcnc.org/vitalcyber) to ensure all of North Carolina’s important community anchor institutions can access affordable cybersecurity solutions.

MCNC has served the technology needs in North Carolina for more than 40 years and is a trusted partner in the state as well as throughout the national R&E Networking Community. Educational institutions, specifically public K-12 schools, provide the “soft targets” sought by hackers and cyber criminals. MCNC Vital Cyber offers a proactive approach to shoring up technology defenses by prioritizing cybersecurity on school networks as well as other sectors such as health care, research organizations, and other R&E networks.

Cybersecurity is not about IF an attack will happen, it’s about WHEN and WHAT you can do when it does. MCNC Vital Cyber manages it all with the best tools and talent available today. These are built-in solutions that take care of security issues before they turn into a costly catastrophe by focusing on improving basic cyber hygiene, network security, cybersecurity education and training, and endpoint protection and monitoring.

MCNC Vital Cyber has partnered with CrowdStrike to provide its new Managed Endpoint Protection Service to help MCNC clients better guard endpoints – such as desktops, laptops, and mobile devices – from malicious activity. Vital Cyber preemptively looks for risky activity around those endpoints to stop ransomware and malware attacks from entering a network before they can do any real damage. Working in concert with MCNC’s elite security team, targeted actions can be taken in real-time to neutralize these threats.

“As cyber threats continue to evolve, it will be the organizations that address security from both a technology and behavior level that will be the strongest and most successful,” explained MCNC chief information security officer Chris Beal. “MCNC Vital Cyber is ready to assist and protect against today’s sophisticated cyber threats and prepare your organization for what’s next.”

For many years, MCNC has provided a growing portfolio of cybersecurity protections to automatically detect and mitigate malicious activity including Web Filtering, DNS Filtering, Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Attack Prevention, Vulnerability Detection, and Secure Access. Additionally, MCNC offers Consulting Services such as a virtual CISO to those who might not be able to afford one, as well as other discreet services.

Vital Cyber reinforces MCNC’s goal to support digital equity and inclusion throughout North Carolina by continuing to collaborate with partners to build-out a robust suite of cybersecurity tools and services. MCNC does the heavy lifting to bring more stability and operational health to North Carolina’s greatest community assets. Follow MCNC Vital Cyber on Twitter @MCNCSecurity.

MCNC is a non-profit, client-focused technology organization. Founded in 1980, MCNC owns and operates NCREN, one of America’s longest-running regional research and education networks. With over 40 years of innovation, MCNC continues to provide high-performance services for education, research, libraries, health care, public safety, and other community anchor institutions throughout North Carolina.