Case Study: Spring Arbor University achieves real-time protection from Office 365 account takeovers with Barracuda Networks' Sentinel

Spring Arbor University Selects Barracuda Sentinel to Stop Office 365 Compromise

Spring Arbor University, a private Christian liberal arts school in Spring Arbor, MI with about 3,800 students, faculty, and staff and roughly 10,000 Office 365 mailboxes, faced a surge in targeted email attacks. In mid-2017 attackers used convincing Office 365 and Dropbox impersonation messages to steal credentials; a single successful spear-phish led to one account compromise that was then used to hijack over 200 other Office 365 accounts, plus domain spoofing and spam incidents across the campus.

Spring Arbor deployed Barracuda Sentinel, an AI-driven cloud service that integrates with Office 365 to stop spear phishing and account takeover in real time. The solution was fast to set up, had no impact on network performance or user experience, and has since prevented multiple targeted attacks—providing continuous Office 365 account protection, simpler management, and real-time defense against cyber fraud.

Spring Arbor University

Chris Blackstone

CIO