We often talk about keeping our institutions cyber-safe. The practice starts at home and extends to organizations we are involved with. Yet, some of the institutions fall through the chinks and turn the most vulnerable to an attack from cyber criminals. We are talking about academia, all kinds of educational facilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In recent times, statistics point to the fact that educational institutions, all over the world have lost a major amount of data to such attacks. As per the report from Verizon, 53,000 incidents and 2,300 data breaches from 5 countries on educational institutes in year 2018. In this article, we shall discuss the why and how of keeping educational organizations safe from such attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Educational institutes have a very weak cover of cyber protection. This stems from various facts including poor cyber security measures, easy access to networks, massive number of people at one place, abundant personal gadgets at use and very limited availability of trained resources to keep these attacks at bay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n How?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are various ways in which hackers can pave their way into the Institute\u2019s systems. Some of them being-<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00b7 DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service), this is a process to bombard the institute\u2019s bandwidth with so many requests that it crashes and no administrator can access the system anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00b7 Ransomware involves the usage of a malware which ends up encrypting files until a demand of ransom in the form of digital currency or other formats is fulfilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00b7 Phishing like in all other cases of cyber-attacks prompts individuals within the organization or related to compromise with their financial information, posing as genuine advisors or authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Reasons<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The major reasons for an educational institution to be so open to attacks are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00b7 Lack of a strong IT team, which is usually due to the lack of funds. Many a times during sanctioning of annual budgets, cyber security is not something that finds its way into the top of the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00b7 Massive amount of information that the institutes store which includes tonne loads of student and parental information, credit card data and research data, aid records. This makes them a favoured target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00b7 Open access, which includes open Wi-Fi hotspots and networks and all and sundry carrying their instruments into the campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00b7 Weak email gateway can also compromise data, it makes it easier for hackers to make use of ransomware and other such devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Prevention<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are a few immediate steps that can be taken to rule out breach of data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – It\u2019s an academic institute, do what they do best, teach. Making the organization, cyber aware. All students, teaching and non-teaching staff need to have the basic knowledge to keep their own and the institutions\u2019 data safe. This includes inculcating a culture of knowledge, against phishing and other malicious cyber invasions. While technology is absolutely necessary given the sheer quantity of data, it\u2019s the people aspect of security that makes the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Invest in cyber security by employing a dedicated taskforce and good practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Have exercises in place to review the security measures, periodically. E.g. Security Vulnerability Assessment and penetration testing of digital assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Keep evolving as the threats do. Make all networks secure and closed to access to anyone not involved with the organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Educational institutes give so much importance to safety and security of students. Wouldn\u2019t it be a disgrace to have lost the data associated with the very students you want kept safe? Just like we employ strict security professionals and methods to keep the gates of a institute safe, in the same manner cyber security too needs a task force to keep invisible attacks away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n At DigiSec360 we provide customized cybersecurity solutions for educational institutes. We have already conducted cybersecurity awareness workshops for students and staff of prominent institutes. We help implement cybersecurity programs which helps educational institutes mitigate cyber-threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n