Advanced Security for Advanced Education | Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine + Druva

Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine (ICOM) is a private, for-profit osteopathic medical school. Founded in 2016, ICOM is located at the Meridian campus of Idaho State University. At ICOM, students can earn a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree.

Ahead of the college’s inception in 2016, Brian Atkinson joined as the Head of IT to lead all IT and security initiatives. Early items on Atkinson’s to-do list included setting up their Apple environment, including staff computers and student iPads, and completing a risk assessment for the college’s accreditation process. He completed the risk assessment which helped identify and assess actual and potential risks, and followed up by implementing activities to prevent the occurrence of risks and reduce the impact they could have.

The risk assessment suggested a data protection and backup solution be implemented to safeguard data and allow ICOM to recover in the event of a ransomware attack. Higher education has been a rising target for attacks over the last few years, and Atkinson knew strong protection needed to be a high priority on his list of technologies to procure.

Additionally, the college runs on Google Workspace, including Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Calendar. Atkinson needed to ensure this data, specifically in Google Drive, was backed up and recoverable in the event of employees departing, accidentally deleting, or should an attack occur.

Atkinson turned to ICOM’s partner to help quickly suggest a data protection and backup solution. Given ICOM’s cloud-first strategy, a cloud-native solution was most ideal for their needs. They ended up checking out a few solutions, some cloud-native and some not.

ICOM ended up moving forward with the Druva Data Resiliency Cloud as part of the AWS Independent Software Provider (ISV) Workload Migration program. This would allow them to optimize AWS cloud costs and maximize ROI with cloud cost optimization features.

Furthermore, ICOM quickly and easily deployed the Druva Data Resiliency Cloud to protect all Google Workspace accounts and end-user devices for employees of the college. One of Atkinson’s favorite features is the scalability of the solution, he shared, “As ICOM continues to grow, we’re grateful to have a scalable cloud solution like Druva that will adapt with us."

As an added layer of protection, ICOM also implemented Druva’s advanced security features, which includes Accelerated Ransomware Recovery for automating the process of recovering clean and complete data sets of any Google Workspace accounts and end-user devices, if a cyber-attack should occur.

Implementing Druva has truly checked several boxes and top-of-mind security items for the college. Ever since completing the risk assessment for their accreditation, it was a major priority to find a cost-effective, air-gapped, and intuitive data protection platform — all of which they have found in the Druva solution.

One of the largest benefits of Druva has been the time saved when needing to complete restores. Atkinson explained, “Previously, file restoration could be painful. With Druva, we are saving at least 50% of the time it previously took to conduct restores."

Not to mention, the advanced security features allow ICOM to continuously monitor their security posture, detect anomalies within backup data sets, expedite incident response, and accelerate data recovery in the event of an attack.

As a final note, Atkinson said, “The biggest win for me is the peace of mind Druva helps us achieve. I had a laundry list of technology systems and solutions to purchase for ICOM, and a data protection solution was at the top of that list. I’m grateful to have had a seamless purchasing process and continued partnership with Druva." Learn more about purchasing Druva via AWS Marketplace here.