Case Study: Virginia Tech achieves PCI compliance and greater visibility across a 32,000-node network with Rapid7 Nexpose

Rapid7 Nexpose Helps to Protect Huge IT Infrastructure at Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech, a large, long-established university with a centralized Office of IT Security, needed to verify Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance across a vast, distributed network. The campus environment — roughly 32,000 nodes, extensive wireless coverage, and no single border firewall — exposed challenges Nessus couldn’t fully address, and the team required a commercial scanner that could provide deeper, centralized visibility while empowering local administrators.

Virginia Tech adopted Rapid7 Nexpose to scan servers, web applications, networks and databases and used its role-based access to let local sysadmins run and review scans independently. The deployment delivered finer-grained visibility and better network control across 32,000 nodes, strengthened PCI-compliance efforts, and was supported by responsive, knowledgeable Rapid7 technical support.

Virginia Tech

Randy Marcheny

Director of IT Security Lab