Case study: Notre Dame University

How RSM helped Notre Dame University strengthen its cyber resilience

Notre Dame University is a national Catholic university with multiple campuses in Western Australia and New South Wales. As a leading provider of higher education, the university faces various cyber threats and challenges that require a robust and proactive approach to cyber security. 

To achieve this, Notre Dame partnered with RSM, a leading provider of risk services, cyber security and privacy services, IT consulting and operational support.

“We've been working with RSM for 18 months to two years, and that was on the back of a competitive tender process to identify a strategic partner for our cyber uplift program.” Peter van Schie, Director of business partners and security.

RSM's team of experts, led by senior manager David Stanbridge, provide Notre Dame with regular assessments, audits, testing, training, and incident response support. 

The education sector requires specialised support, but RSM’s strong understanding and prior experience in the sector allowed us to provide services specifically tailored to suit Notre Dame.

Peter says, “RSM have a sound understanding of Notre Dame and the higher education sector in general."

“It's not the easiest of environments to maintain a strong cyber posture with the number of BYO devices and the increasing government compliance and legislation requirements.”

David adds, “Understanding that they work with students, their student data information, understanding what their critical assets are, being able to reduce their risk while improving the maturity of the processes is really important to us.” Achieving this involved cross-divisional support from experts in RSM’s risk advisory team, our cyber security and privacy services team and our IT consulting team.

“RSM advises us on a number of different levels, so some of it is proactive advice that they come to us with when they hear about things in the sector or in cyberspace in general. Or we reach out to them when we have concerns about specific things that come our way."  Peter van Schie

The partnership between RSM and Notre Dame has resulted in significant improvements in Notre Dame's cyber resilience and readiness. 

“The breadth of services that RSM offered and the expertise in the team was really valuable and made life a lot easier for the internal team at Notre Dame.” Peter van Schie

With support from RSM, Notre Dame has been able to identify and mitigate cyber risks, enhance its security posture, comply with relevant standards and frameworks and foster a culture of cyber awareness among its staff and students.

Key Takeaways

Trust, collaboration and working together on specific initiatives are critical factors that set RSM apart and contribute to the success of our partnership with Notre Dame University. The open and transparent communication style of RSM’s cyber security team helped foster a collaborative and professional working relationship. David and the team at RSM established a strong rapport with Notre Dame's Director of business partners and security, Peter van Schie, and his team. This helped us demonstrate our reliability, professionalism, and expertise in delivering high-quality services. 

“The one thing that sets RSM apart is that they really are a trusted partner… The collaboration, the trust and the way that we work together on our specific initiatives is really critical for our success.” Peter van Schie