Case Study: The Texas A&M University System saves $7 million and cuts threat investigation time from days to minutes with Vectra AI Inc.'s Cognito

An academic and research powerhouse

The Texas A&M University System, a sprawling academic and research organization spanning 11 universities, seven state agencies and hundreds of research programs, faced a growing threat landscape: valuable research made it a target for sophisticated and nation‑state attackers while a shortage of cybersecurity talent and a lean security staff made rapid detection and response difficult across a network that supports roughly 250,000 users.

By deploying Vectra’s Cognito network detection and response platform, the A&M System gained continuous internal traffic visibility, automated threat scoring and prioritized detections that eliminated time‑consuming Tier‑1 analysis. The SOC detected and mitigated seven intruders in a year, cut investigations from days to minutes, enabled interns to serve as Tier‑1 analysts, and avoided costly post‑breach forensics—resulting in an estimated $7 million saved in one year.

The Texas A&M University System

Dan Basile

Executive Director of the Security Operations Center