Case Study: University of Idaho achieves stronger IT security and accurate vulnerability management with Qualys

For IT Security, University of Idaho Raises Its Grade

The University of Idaho, a public university with 850+ employees and over 10,000 students, needed to improve protection of student and employee data and meet PCI and regulatory requirements while running a lean IT staff. After losing two administrators and deciding to distribute security responsibilities across network and systems teams, the university found its open‑source scanner produced inconsistent results and false positives, undermining its vulnerability and risk management program.

The university implemented the Qualys Cloud Platform to automate discovery, assessment, prioritization, reporting and remediation. Qualys delivered accurate, consistent scans (virtually eliminating false positives), simplified use so any team member can run checks, and provided PCI‑approved scanning and reporting. As a result, the IT team gained confidence in vulnerability data, sped remediation, enabled federated security responsibilities, and now requires Qualys validation before systems go into production.

University of Idaho

Dave Lien

Networks and Systems Manager