Network Penetration Testing for Colleges and Universities in Salt Lake City

 

Colleges and universities in Salt Lake City and across Utah are high‑value targets for cybercriminals. Student records, research data, financial information, and healthcare data from campus clinics are all attractive to attackers. Common attacks—phishing emails, malware, password attacks, SQL injections, and ransomware—are designed to quietly gain access to this information and hold institutions hostage at the worst possible moment (for example, during enrollment or finals).

According to industry data, the median cost of a data breach in 2021 reached $4.24M (source). That figure only includes reported incidents; many breaches in higher education go unreported or are discovered late, after the real damage is done.

Network penetration testing (net‑pen testing) is a controlled, ethical hacking exercise where security specialists simulate real‑world cyberattacks against your campus network, data center, cloud services, and remote access systems. For Utah colleges and universities, this type of IT security assessment is essential to:

• Identify vulnerabilities before attackers do

• Validate existing security controls such as firewalls, VPNs, MFA, and endpoint protection

• Support compliance with FERPA, HIPAA (for campus health services), PCI DSS (for payment processing), and research data requirements

• Reduce risk to critical systems like student information systems, LMS platforms, and research environments

Regular penetration tests help university leadership, boards, and IT teams confirm that the institution’s defenses can withstand modern attacks, including insider threats and assumed compromise scenarios.

 

Utah Higher Education Network Penetration Testing Experience

 

OCD Tech provides network penetration testing services to colleges and universities in Salt Lake City and throughout Utah, including institutions connected to the Utah Education and Telehealth Network (UETN) and multi‑campus environments.

Our team combines hands‑on ethical hacking experience with deep knowledge of IT risk, compliance, and higher‑education operations. We routinely work with:

• Public and private universities

• Community and technical colleges

• Research institutions and medical campuses

• Online and hybrid learning environments across Utah

The result is a practical, realistic security assessment that not only highlights weaknesses, but also provides clear, prioritized remediation guidance tailored to university budgets, staffing, and change‑management processes.

 

Network Penetration Testing Methodology

 

OCD Tech follows a structured, repeatable penetration testing methodology designed to mirror how real attackers operate—while maintaining strict rules of engagement to protect campus operations. A typical engagement may include:

• Passive Reconnaissance – Quietly gathering information about your external and internal environment without direct interaction, including public data, DNS records, and exposed services.

• Active Reconnaissance – Safely scanning systems and networks to discover live hosts, open ports, insecure services, and misconfigurations.

• Social Engineering – Optional, controlled testing of phishing and other human‑focused attacks against staff, faculty, and in some cases student populations, to measure user awareness and incident response.

• Exploitation – Attempting to exploit identified weaknesses in network services, web applications, wireless networks, VPNs, and campus systems under tightly managed conditions.

• Post‑Exploitation – Determining what an attacker could do after gaining access, such as viewing or exfiltrating sensitive data in student information systems, HR/payroll, or research databases.

• Privilege Escalation – Attempting to move from a normal user to administrator or domain‑level access, simulating a worst‑case compromise.

• Lateral Movement – Testing how easily an attacker could move across campus networks—from one department, campus, or VLAN to another (for example, from a lab network to administrative systems).

• Maintain Access – Evaluating whether an attacker could quietly persist in your environment using backdoors, misconfigurations, or weak monitoring.

• Covering Tracks – Assessing how well logs, monitoring, and the security operations process would detect, alert on, and investigate real attack activity.

• Reporting – Delivering a clear, non‑technical executive summary for leadership, along with a detailed technical report for IT and security teams, including risk ratings, proof‑of‑concept details, and specific remediation steps.

This approach gives your institution a realistic view of how a red team (attackers) would fare against your existing blue team (defenders), and can support purple team style exercises where both sides collaborate to rapidly improve defenses.

 

National Reach

 

While we focus strongly on Utah and the Salt Lake City higher‑education community, OCD Tech also delivers network penetration testing and IT security assessments to institutions and organizations across the U.S., including Boston (MA), New York City (NY), Washington DC, Philadelphia (PA), Dallas (TX), Los Angeles (CA), Chicago (IL), and Baltimore (MD).

 

Contact Our Utah Network Penetration Testing Consultants

 

OCD Tech provides network penetration testing and cybersecurity consulting to colleges, universities, and education organizations in Salt Lake City and across Utah. If you would like to discuss a penetration test, campus‑wide security assessment, or a focused review of critical systems, complete the form below and a team member will contact you shortly.