In 2019, a ransomware attack hit Crowder College, a community college in Neosho, Missouri, about an hour north of Fayetteville, Arkansas. The ransomware shut down the college’s email, website and computer systems for their approximately 4,500 students, 300 full-time employees, and 400 part-time employees. The virus, likely introduced via email, had been dormant in the computer’s system for nearly a year. The college refused to pay the hackers' $1.6 million demand and set to work rebuilding and restoring their systems.
After the ransomware incident, Crowder brought in Al Stadler, an experienced IT professional who had just spent 12 years as the Chief Information Officer at Missouri Southern State University, as the college’s first Vice President of Information Services
and Chief Information Officer.
Crowder College needed an affordable and easy-to-manage email security solution. They were looking for a tool that could easily prove its value and make life easier for their small IT department.
Learn how switching to Avanan got their security "way closer to near-perfect".