Around the world, the education sector is increasingly targeted by cyberthreats. In fact, education was the third-most targeted industry by cybercriminals in Q2 2024, and the second-most targeted sector by nation-state threat actors in 2024. These attacks often carry devastating consequences, from identity theft to severe breaches across education networks and systems. With the rise of digital learning and the proliferation of connected devices—alongside continually evolving threats—IT departments face a greater challenge to secure digital environments in education.
In the modern threat landscape, it’s important to consider whether your cybersecurity strategy is equipped to help you navigate these challenges. Deploying the most up-to-date devices, software, and operating systems can help close security vulnerabilities and build proactive protection. Windows 11 helps you strengthen your overall security posture, drive greater productivity, and build safer communities for learning, working, and teaching.
Unlock greater productivity while maintaining robust and comprehensive protection
Today, organizations around the world are rethinking their security approaches down to their hardware. Cybersecurity software alone is no longer enough to protect systems as bad actors leverage new technologies and tactics to bypass defenses and access critical resources.
Designed to address education’s most critical cyberthreats, Windows 11 is the most secure version of Windows to date, designed with security built into each level, including:
- Cloud
- Identity
- Application
- Operating system
- Hardware
The default security features of Windows 11 were created based on threat intelligence, global regulatory requirements, and Microsoft Security expertise. Through partnerships with original equipment manufacturers and silicon manufacturers, Windows 11 is designed for greater security starting at the chip level—enabling hardware and software to work together to shrink the organizational attack surface, protect system integrity, and secure institutional data.
To simplify deployment for IT teams, Windows 11 comes with key out-of-the-box features enabled, including:
- Credential safeguards
- Application protection
- Malware shields
It’s also designed to integrate with Microsoft Security Copilot, which leverages generative AI capabilities to provide greater insights and efficiency to help improve security at scale. Windows 11 Pro devices drive a 62% drop in reported security incidents and are shown to accelerate workflows by 50% on average, helping you and your organization achieve more with less time and effort. Let’s take a deeper look at how Windows 11 helps you tackle cybersecurity challenges across different environments.
Application safeguards help keep critical data safe
Windows 11 offers a complete platform for educational institutions to house and protect critical applications such as learning management systems (LMS), administrative software, and productivity tools. Attackers often target poorly secured applications, which is why Windows 11 provides you with built-in capabilities such as preemptive application and driver control to isolate breaches quickly. Robust application safeguards help you maintain governance of your sensitive data, including:
- Student records
- Financial information
- Access credentials
- Research data
Windows 11 is designed to support Zero Trust strategies, which play a key role in helping you strengthen application and operating system protection. This approach is centered around the principles of “verify explicitly, use least privilege access, and assume breach,” meaning that you and your team can verify each access request as though it originated from an uncontrolled network—instead of assuming that everything behind the firewall is safe.
To that end, Windows 11 enables you to more easily find and detect cyberthreats, respond to them, and prevent or block undesired events across your education institution. In the case of a presumed breach, you can combat common application attacks from the moment a device is provisioned. When it comes to network security, granting access within a trust-by-exception policy versus a trust-by-default policy helps better protect the digital security, privacy, and compliance needs of your educational community.
Deliver end-to-end protection with Windows 11 cloud-based device management
With the introduction of more tech solutions, many education institutions face new challenges in managing cybersecurity. Having more devices across school and home environments creates more access points for potential attackers. To get ahead of potential breaches, get started with proactive, end-to-end device management strategies that help protect privacy and security.
Windows 11 helps empower you and your IT team by offering comprehensive cloud services for identity, storage, and access management. Adhering to Zero Trust principles, enforcing compliance, and granting conditional access helps verify that Windows 11 devices connected to an organization’s networks are trustworthy and safe. With more than 90% of ransom-stage cyberattacks leveraging unmanaged devices in a network, interoperable cloud-based device management solutions enable you to secure the digital estate and quickly respond to threats.
Managing and enabling secure use of devices at scale can also be a challenge for IT departments at education institutions. To give you and your team greater visibility and control over their digital estate, Windows 11 offers an integrated management suite. This suite supports comprehensive endpoint management solutions such as Microsoft Intune that help secure, deploy, and manage users, apps, and devices.1 Intune can further integrate with Microsoft Entra ID to manage security features and processes, including multifactor authentication.
Additionally, Windows Hello enables you to deploy passwordless authentication for a safer and simpler sign-in experience. Thanks to the addition of passkeys, students can enjoy even greater security and convenience by using their face, fingerprint, or PIN to sign in to websites and apps. Enhanced threat detection on Microsoft Defender for Endpoint helps shield devices against phishing and malware and empowers IT teams to thwart attacks before they cause harm.1 By adding Security Copilot, IT staff can leverage natural language queries to get holistic insights on the security and safety of their organization, which can help drive better decision-making and strategic planning.
Start preparing now for future security protections
In planning your security approach, your institution has an opportunity to adopt modern, secure, and highly efficient computing solutions that help your organization tackle the cybersecurity challenges of today and tomorrow. Windows 11 offers powerful, hardware-backed protection that provides a foundation for implementing new technology solutions as they’re developed, such as AI that helps accelerate workflows and supercharge efficiency of operations.
Now is the time to identify devices in your organization that are due for upgrades and start improving your institution’s security and your IT team’s efficiency today. Get started with these resources:
- Evaluate which of your devices are eligible for updates by reviewing the Windows 11 hardware requirements.
- Join the Windows Insider Program for Business to evaluate your readiness and explore new features.
- Start developing a plan for your organization’s upgrade to Windows 11.
1 Sold separately from Windows 11
