PA Schools Strengthen Cybersecurity While Saving $5.2M

Challenge

Across Pennsylvania, the mission for school technology teams is clear — protect sensitive data and keep student learning on track. When breaches to school districts started showing up weekly around the state, CAIU searched for a replacement for their legacy anti-virus solutions. Too often, threats were undetected and compromised systems that students, faculty, and staff depended on. An around-the-clock security operations center (SOC) was critical for CAIU and other districts, but the cost previously put that out of reach.

Solution

The team evaluated leading platforms against MITRE results and Gartner ratings, completing evaluations and proofs of concept. SentinelOne quickly rose to the top for endpoint protection, ease of use, and AI-powered automation.

Wayfinder MDR offers an affordable route to 24x7 SOC coverage and alert management across districts. Meanwhile, Singularity Endpoint provides AI-based threat prevention, automated response, full visibility into incidents, and device rollback to the original state. Further reducing the burden on the team, Purple AI brings natural language investigations, proactive checks, and faster responses.

Results

They implemented SentinelOne in half the school districts in Pennsylvania in just two years — saving approximately $5.2 million in taxpayers’ money. They also recover devices in less than 15 minutes, instead of hours or days and have peace of mind with 24x7 detection and response.