Ensuring a Safe Digital Environment for Students and Staff

Charles Darwin University (CDU) is the only university in the Northern Territory offering both TAFE and Higher Education courses online and with flexible delivery options. With over 20,000 students enrolled across its eight campuses, and 1,500 academic and professional staff, the university holds enormous repositories of data that carry significant potential for use and re-use to improve academic outcomes, advance research, and support strategy and decision-making.

With Higher Education providers increasingly being a target for cyber-crime, protection of CDU’s valuable information assets became a key priority. While CDU has always supported the adoption of new technologies, they wanted to ensure a safe digital environment was maintained for their students and staff. The introduction of Microsoft 365, combined with increased information flow across multiple departments, systems and lines of business, presented challenges related to content sprawl and siloed information.

CDU were open to exploring innovative solutions for managing their information.

Castlepoint’s indexing revealed many high-risk records in CDU’s Microsoft 365 environment, while surfacing records overdue for data governance actions.

Searching for solutions
Enter Castlepoint!
Castlepoint CEO Rachael Greaves’ presentation at the RIMPA Melbourne conference introduced the concept of how information in systems could be managed in-place. The innovative approach of using explainable AI to manage retention and to detect sensitive data in systems, while being unobtrusive to users, made an impression on the CDU governance team.

Transformation in progress
After going out to market CDU engaged Castlepoint to implement the command-and-control system on its secure cloud network with access to its Microsoft 365 platform, providing regulatory control over SharePoint Online, Teams, OneDrive, and Exchange initially. The agentless management of multiple systems included invisible automated compliance for users, automated identification of high-risk data, and comprehensive auditing and monitoring. Artificial intelligence provided data classification and automated record sentencing against CDU’s Functional Records and Disposal Authorities in a transparent and scalable way. Installation, access connections and testing were completed quickly, and the system went into production on time and on budget.

We are now in a better position to be able to protect our people and intellectual property from harm or loss…and reduce workload across the team.”
“The Castlepoint team has been great to work with from first engagement. You can always reach a real person to talk with, and jobs logged through their ticketing system have quick turnaround times.

Cheryl Dias, Information Management Coordinator

Reaping the rewards
Castlepoint’s indexing revealed many high-risk records in CDU’s Microsoft 365 environment, while surfacing records overdue for data governance actions. CDU’s governance team mobilised to bring this information to baseline compliance and are currently working through a remediation program in conjunction with Governance and Legal that includes auditing and data clean-up, records appraisal and sentencing based on CDU’s Records Authorities, regular reporting, and monitoring. “Now we know what’s happening in the environment, we have a better understanding of our risk profile and can take steps to manage it appropriately. Castlepoint indexing against our Records Authorities and high-risk ontologies enables us to undertake robust records management activities that will have immediate benefits and reduce the workload across the team. We are now in a better position to be able to protect our people and intellectual property from harm or loss. Castlepoint team has been great to work with from first engagement. You can always reach a real person to talk with, and jobs logged through their ticketing system have quick turnaround times.” Cheryl Dias – Information Management Co-ordinator

CDU is a very progressive university, one which, like Castlepoint, believes in using knowledge to bring people together and shape brighter futures. We are proud to have empowered transformation in the way students, staff and researchers work; enabling knowledge expansion, protection of data and safeguarding of the communities and environments they serve.

Rachael Greaves, CEO, Castlepoint Systems