October is national Cyber Security Awareness Month, and for the world of higher education, that means it is time to take a look at defense systems and plan for the future. Clearly, more planning is needed now than ever before. According to the majority of IT market research firms, phishing and identity theft have leapfrogged spam and spyware as top concerns; viruses and e-mail worms are at an all-time high; and other affronts to the network are occurring with greater and greater frequency. Even hackers are getting in on the act: A recent "USA Today" review of 109 computer-related security breaches reported by 76 college campuses since January 2005 found that 70 percent involved hacking of one form or another. Faced with this multitude of threats, security administrators across higher education are fighting back on four major fronts: (1) the perimeter; (2) inside the network (internal); (3) e-mail; and (4) the administrative level. While "perimeter" defenses revolve around next-generation firewalls, "internal" network strategies focus on something called "cooperative enforcement" to make sure endpoints are secure. "E-mail" security is its own beast altogether, and at the "administrative" level, security experts are implementing a mix of penetration-testing and security-event-management tools to identify and repair security problems proactively. These are groundbreaking security strategies that work. The author suggests that it is time to drop the ad hoc approach, take a stand, and strengthen those network defenses with products and approaches that deliver. In this article, campus technologists discuss security measures that are working now.