Arctic Security and HESS: Early Warning for Higher Education

The Higher Education Systems & Services Consortium (HESS) has partnered with Arctic Security to bring cyber early warning to its member colleges and universities. HESS members can now receive tailored, low-noise threat intelligence — focused on their own infrastructure — without needlessly adding headcount or complexity.

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About the partnership

The Higher Education Systems & Services Consortium (HESS) is a non-profit organization serving private, non-profit colleges and universities across the United States. 
 
Cybersecurity is a growing focus for the consortium. As a member service, HESS has partnered with Arctic Security to provide member institutions with access to high-quality cyber early warning.
 
Arctic Security’s Early Warning Service (EWS) monitors each institution’s publicly visible infrastructure for vulnerabilities and active threats, filtering alerts down to what genuinely requires attention. The service is tailored toward Higher Education, with no installation required.


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Keith Fowlkes, HESS

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“I am pleased that our consortium can bring this service to our member institutions. During our review of Arctic Security, we were impressed with the innovative nature of the service and its proactive approach to an area so crucial to our member institutions’ cybersecurity operations.

The reduction of time-to-address threats will enable our schools to become more proactive and improve their security posture without negatively impacting their other duties. In today’s higher education environment, hiring additional, experienced, cybersecurity professionals is challenging, so it is essential to leverage existing security resources, enabling teams to achieve more in less time.”

- Keith Fowlkes, Co-founder and Executive Director at The HESS Consortium

JasonPursian

"Arctic EWS has helped us maintain additional visibility of potential vulnerabilities on publicly accessible endpoints and select domains, and by remediating those vulnerabilities and closing off unnecessary access, has reduced our potential attack surface.

While they vary in severity, over the past year, all notifications from Arctic EWS have been actionable and legitimate findings, with zero false positives."

- Jason Pursian, Information Security Officer at UW-Madison, CALS

What HESS members receive

Every HESS member institution is eligible for a monthly security snapshot — an automated summary of known vulnerabilities and service exposure detected on their publicly visible infrastructure. This is delivered at no additional cost as part of the HESS membership through the membership portal.

Early Warning review session

Member institutions can book a one-on-one session with an Arctic Security analyst to go deeper.

The session covers:

  • Asset discovery review, identifying IP ranges, domains, and services you may not have catalogued
  • A detailed review of your current exposure and open findings, based on public information from previous full month
  • Discussion on private data sources that would offer increased visibility
  • Guidance on prioritising remediation within your team’s existing capacity
  • Discussion of longer-term EWS subscription options if relevant

Review sessions are available to all HESS member institutions. There is no obligation to purchase a subscription to Arctic EWS.

Continuous security monitoring at HESS membership rates

HESS has negotiated the lowest available subscription rates for continuous monitoring service for its membership.

Arctic Security’s Early Warning Service (Arctic EWS) monitors the publicly visible IP ranges and domains associated with your institution and provides accurate and timely warnings, so that you can reduce your risk with practical steps that won’t require you to invest additional staff. The service identifies known exploited vulnerabilities and critical exposed services that an adversary can find and exploit.

In addition, Arctic EWS provides a monthly retrospective report documenting the findings. It’s concise, actionable, and the service requires no installation or integration on your end.

Monthly reporting

Arctic EWS subscribers get two monthly reports that reveal what is getting past their current security measures. The overview report is perfect for communicating with the management, who must understand how the security situation develops from one month to the next. It also helps you to track how your externally visible assets change over time. 

The performance and progression report reviews your issues one by one and explains why they are a problem, why they are relevant to you, and how to validate the findings.

With Arctic EWS, you can learn what others already know about you – and preact now.

HESS member pricing

Small

For universities and colleges with up to 6,000 enrolled students

Billed annually at USD 4,800 

Discounts available for longer-term commitments.

$4800/year

Medium

For universities and colleges with up to 10,000 enrolled students

Billed annually at USD 7,800

Discounts available for longer-term commitments.

$7800/year

Large

For universities and colleges with more than 10,000 enrolled students

Billed annually at USD 13,200

Discounts available for longer-term commitments.

$13200/year

I'm interested in the Early Warning Service

After you submit the form, we will reach out to schedule a meeting to discuss your baseline report for the past 6 months and show you the value Arctic EWS offers.

Sharing and reviewing the report with you does not obligate you to sign up for an Arctic EWS subscription.