Case Study: Waubonsee Community College achieves full IoT visibility and reduced risk with Palo Alto Networks IoT Security

Waubonsee Community College Gets an “A” in IoT Security

Waubonsee Community College, serving about 30,000 students across four Illinois campuses and an online community, needed to expand IoT-enabled learning while protecting student and research data. With a small security team led by Information Security Manager Tarun Trivedi, the college lacked visibility into where hundreds of devices were communicating, needed risk baselines for roughly 1,000 IoT devices, and required a non-disruptive solution that preserved open collaboration and met regulatory security best practices.

By deploying Palo Alto Networks IoT Security in a phased rollout, Waubonsee gained machine-learning device profiling and complete visibility into its IoT estate (about 1,000 devices across 40 device types) without changing existing infrastructure. The system delivered ongoing risk assessments, alerted the team to high-risk behaviors (e.g., a printer updating outside policy), enabled clear reporting to leadership, reduced exposure, and strengthened the college’s overall security posture while keeping campuses open for learning and research.

Waubonsee Community College

Tarun Trivedi

Information Security Manager