FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OULU, Finland, September 1, 2026. The HESS Consortium (HESS), a community of practice for private, non-profit colleges and universities in the United States, has selected Arctic Security’s Early Warning Service (EWS) as a service for its member institutions. The service is available to HESS members through The Coalition for College Cost Savings (The Coalition), the consortium’s exclusive group purchasing partner.
Arctic EWS continuously monitors an institution’s internet-facing infrastructure and notifies its IT team about vulnerabilities, exposed services, and hosts that appear to be compromised, as seen from outside the network. Warnings go directly to the institution’s own team, in a form they can act on, with no software to install and no additional staff required. The service draws on the same external data sources and methods that national cybersecurity authorities use to warn the organizations in their countries.
HESS selected Arctic Security after a period of due diligence that included the results of a six-month study Arctic Security conducted with the Independent College Enterprise, a consortium of ten private colleges in the Appalachian region. For the participating colleges, the average time from first detection of a security issue to its fix fell from 81 days at the start of the project to 1.3 days, while a comparable control group that received no notifications showed no such improvement. Ninety-eight percent of the notifications sent during the study were accurate, and the participating colleges recorded half as many weekly security issue observations as the control group.
“The HESS Consortium is pleased to bring this service to our member schools. During our due diligence we realized that this is a unique service that helps our institutions protect their networks and data privacy at a higher level than was previously possible. In private higher education, hiring additional experienced cybersecurity professionals is challenging, so it is essential to leverage existing security resources and enable teams to achieve more in less time. Arctic Security’s Early Warning Service will let our schools become much more proactive and improve their security posture without taking time from their other duties,” said Keith Fowlkes, Founder and Executive Director of The HESS Consortium.
“We chose Arctic Security because of their focus on higher education,” Fowlkes added. “Working together, we were able to put together a member package that provides maximum value, with pricing that is affordable for private institutions of all sizes.”
“The Coalition’s mission is to help state-level higher education member organizations create collaborative opportunities that enable their colleges and universities to transform processes, reduce costs, and increase efficiencies,” said Lyen Crews, President of The Coalition for College Cost Savings. “Recognizing the growing cost and complexity of cybersecurity, this agreement reflects that mission by allowing institutions of any size to access continuous early-warning monitoring through pre-negotiated terms and a streamlined domestic contract, without having to conduct their own procurement process. It is precisely the kind of cost-saving, operationally efficient opportunity The Coalition was created to deliver.”
For institutions in the United States, contracting is handled domestically through Venseca, a Breinigsville, Pennsylvania corporation, so that member institutions can subscribe under familiar terms.
“For years our work has been with national cyber security centers and CSIRTs, helping them warn the organizations in their countries about problems visible from the outside. Higher education faces the same adversaries with far smaller teams and budgets, and this kind of external view tailored to them has been out of reach for most colleges,” said David Chartier, CEO of Arctic Security. “Our goal is to make it available to every institution, not just the largest or the best endowed. With HESS and The Coalition, member schools get an outside perspective on their own networks, so their teams know which issues to fix first and can get ahead of attackers rather than react to them.”
HESS member institutions can learn more about the service and book a review of their institution’s current exposure at arcticsecurity.com/hess.
Arctic Security is a Finnish cybersecurity company that builds and operates cyber early warning services. Its Arctic Hub platform is used by national cybersecurity authorities and CERTs to warn the organizations in their countries about vulnerabilities and compromises visible from the internet, and its Early Warning Service brings the same capability directly to universities, enterprises, and managed security service providers. Arctic Security is headquartered in Oulu, Finland. For more information, visit https://www.arcticsecurity.com.
The Higher Education Systems and Services Consortium (HESS) is a community of practice for CIOs, CFOs, and technology professionals at private, non-profit colleges and universities. Being a part of HESS means that a technology community with experience and expertise specific to private institutions is available to back you up. For more information, visit https://www.hessconsortium.org.
The Coalition for College Cost Savings is a group purchasing organization that leverages the collective buying power of private non-profit colleges and universities across the US to negotiate opportunities to create new non-tuition revenue, reduce cost, and increase efficiencies through negotiated contracts with select service providers. The Coalition and its program partners help private colleges and universities reduce operating costs, streamline operations, and ultimately lower the cost of delivering education. Visit https://www.thecoalition.us for more information.
Arctic Security Oy
David Chartier, CEO
david.chartier@arcticsecurity.com
The Coalition for College Cost Savings
Lyen Crews, President
crews@thecoalition.us
HESS Consortium
Keith Fowlkes, Executive Director & Founder
keith.fowlkes@hessconsortium.org