Case Study: Virginia Tech achieves phishing-resistant, compliant campus access with Yubico YubiKeys

Virginia Tech secures online campus services with strong two-factor authentication

Virginia Tech, a large research university serving over 34,000 students with a $502M research portfolio, faced growing risks from increasingly sophisticated phishing attacks and strict compliance requirements (HIPAA, PCI, FERPA, NIST 800-171). The university needed a strong, fast, and user-friendly two-factor authentication solution that would protect sensitive research data, campus services, and payroll while being practical for faculty and researchers who log in frequently.

Virginia Tech selected YubiKeys (integrated via Duo) to provide hardware-based, press-and-go 2FA across faculty, researchers, IT staff, and students. YubiKeys were quickly adopted for Gmail, Banner, and other services, made widely available through campus bookstores and bundled with freshman computer purchases—resulting in stronger security, improved compliance posture, streamlined authentication, and broader campus digital literacy.

Virginia Tech

Hla Tlou

Corporate Technology Division Manager