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As schools and universities continue to rely heavily on technology, the risk of cyberattacks becomes increasingly alarming. With hackers getting smarter by the day, it’s more important than ever for educational institutions to prioritize cybersecurity solutions. From personal information breaches to system shutdowns, a successful attack can have serious consequences that extend far beyond just financial damages. Today, we will explore the importance of cybersecurity in educational institutions, as well as solutions on how to protect against potential threats.
Prime Targets for Cybercriminals
Schools and universities are hot targets for cyberattacks due to various reasons. First, these institutions hold a vast amount of sensitive information on their students, faculty members, and staff. This includes personal data that could be lucrative to cybercriminals such as:
- Social security numbers;
- Addresses;
- Medical records;
- Financial information.
Moreover, most educational institutions have a wide range of endpoints connected to their networks – from laptops to tablets to smartphones, with an exceptional number being given directly to students to be used as educational aids – making it challenging to secure them all efficiently.
With the widespread use of cloud-based platforms in education today, threat actors can quickly gain access through weak passwords and unsecured Wi-Fi connections and move horizontally from that point on.
Educational institutions often lack adequate cybersecurity measures compared to other key sectors. IT budgets are usually limited in educational institutions meaning fewer resources go toward securing critical systems.
For example, most schools don’t have a centralized logging and monitoring system in place to detect and track cyberattacks. This makes it difficult to determine the source of any attacks and to take corrective action.
Furthermore, education systems rely heavily on technology nowadays which increases their attack surface area. A successful ransomware attack could cripple an entire school district by shutting down administrative services such as email servers or e-learning portals.
There is no doubt that schools and universities face numerous challenges when it comes to protecting themselves against ever-evolving cybersecurity threats. We must continue working towards developing effective solutions tailored specifically for educational settings while keeping up-to-date with new technologies that may pose risks in the future.
Why Do Educational Institutions Struggle with Cybersecurity?
According to a study conducted by the United States Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), there are several reasons why institutions in the educational system struggle with cybersecurity.
One of the most prominent reasons is their financial resources. With finite resources, institutions can only take a small number of steps to significantly reduce cybersecurity risk.
Another reason is that many school districts struggle with insufficient IT resources and cybersecurity capacity.
The Consequences of a Cyberattack on a School or University
By not, we have made it clear that a cyberattack on a school or university can have devastating consequences that go beyond just the loss of data. It can affect faculty staff, students, and even the reputation of the institution itself.
Stolen Personal and Financial Information
For starters, a successful cyberattack can result in sensitive personal and financial information being stolen from students and staff members. This not only puts them at risk for identity theft but also damages their trust in the organization to protect their personal information.
A recent example can be the case of the University of Stanford, which happened this year in February. The university discovered a breach that affected its data between December 2022 and January 2023. The threat actors exfiltrated files containing private information of 897 Economics Ph. D. applicants, including phone numbers, citizenship, names, dates of birth, home and mail addresses, and other data.
The reported cause of the breach was a settings misconfiguration, but the thought that threat actors roamed freely into the university’s data for a full month without anyone noticing is frightening. This was not the only incident that affected Stanford, as in April 2021, one of the most active threat groups, Clop Ransomware, leaked personal information belonging to students and staff of Stanford Medicine. This particular incident also affected the University of Michigan, the University of California, and other 300 companies.
Disruptions in Teaching and Learning Activities
If critical systems such as email servers or online learning platforms are compromised, it could lead to significant disruptions in teaching and learning activities. This would result in lost productivity for both students and teachers alike.
Loss of Reputation
An attack on an educational institution could cause reputational damage that takes years to recover from. Parents might be hesitant to enroll their children in a school that has experienced a security breach. And potential employees may choose not to work at universities with poor cybersecurity practices. Ultimately, this could even lead to revenue losses through funding.
The Top Cybersecurity Threats Educational Institutions Face Today
1. Phishing Attacks
One major threat facing schools today is phishing attacks. These malicious emails or messages aim to trick individuals into revealing their personal information or login credentials. Cybercriminals often disguise themselves as legitimate organizations or even school officials, making it difficult for unsuspecting staff members or students to identify these scams.
2. Ransomware
Ransomware attacks also pose a serious threat to schools. In such attacks, cybercriminals encrypt an organization’s files and demand a ransom in exchange for unlocking them. This can lead to significant disruptions in school operations and potentially compromise confidential student and faculty information.
3. Social Engineering
Another growing concern is the rise of social engineering tactics targeting educational institutions. Cybercriminals may exploit human vulnerabilities through impersonation, manipulation, or deception techniques to gain unauthorized access to systems or sensitive data.
4. Inadequate Network Security Measures
Inadequate network security measures can leave schools vulnerable to hacking attempts and data breaches. Weak passwords, unpatched software vulnerabilities, and lack of proper firewall protection increase the risk of unauthorized access and potential exposure of sensitive information.
5. Lack of Cyber Awareness
People are crucial to the security of your institution. Unfortunately, students and professors lack an adequate level of awareness of the danger that lay in cyberspace, leading to drastic consequences. Provide the people in your institution with information and raise the level of awareness to be protected.
Choosing the Right Solutions for Your Institution: How Can Heimdal® Help You?
Taking into consideration the complex matter and the large threat exposure, there are multiple ways in which you can protect your systems.
Opting for a solution like Heimdal’s very own Threat Prevention Endpoint can be a good option. A strong DNS filter is adequate for stopping threats before they become bigger problems. Our Predictive DNS, a truly revolutionary AI & ML algorithm that is capable of predicting if a domain is malicious before it will host any malicious content is suitable for stopping threat actors in their tracks. Advanced neural networks and AI linguistic analysis are capable of achieving an unprecedented level of truly intelligent prevention.
Furthermore, our DNS will allow you to protect your students from being exposed to violent ideologies present in the online space. You can control at a granular level the access of your students to inappropriate videos and content on sites such as YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and others, plus, you gain:
- Ability to provide logs to an external SIEM;
- Support logging for 90 days;
- Create access policies based on IP ranges and active directory groups;
- Ability to inspect SSL traffic.
Our solution also allows you to create custom whitelists and blacklists with pre-defined rules. And by using the ‘block by category’ feature, our Predictive DNS technology will allow you to block sites and content based on contextualized keyword analysis. In this way, pupils and staff will not be able to access dangerous ideologies or search for detrimental and possibly harmful content.
By preventing access to these dangerous ideologies, we hope to mitigate the risk present to both the student and school system.
Heimdal® DNS Security Solution
- Machine learning powered scans for all incoming online traffic;
- Stops data breaches before sensitive info can be exposed to the outside;
- Advanced DNS, HTTP and HTTPS filtering for all your endpoints;
- Protection against data leakage, APTs, ransomware and exploits;
Besides DNS, a capable antivirus and firewall are essential. An example can be our very own Next-Gen Anti-Virus, enhanced with our XTP and MDM modules. This antivirus uses some of the strongest AI-integrated antivirus on the market today. We strongly believe that for you to receive the protection that you need; this must be included.
Our Antivirus and MDM automatically protect against threats within the system by isolating them within the sandbox, along with the strongest brute force prevention in the market. Our MDM allows us to operate on most cell phones and tablets.
Heimdal® Next-Gen Endpoint Antivirus
- Multiple layers of detection.
- Enhanced Brute-Force Protection.
- Remote device control with MDM.
And to show support towards the educational system, Heimdal has a flexible offering for schools. Our motto is predicting the problems of tomorrow, today. We also strongly believe in protecting the future of tomorrow, today, and that future is represented by the students.
Furthermore, we can also help you by providing a tailored training plan, for school IT professionals, professors, and students alike.
Conclusion
In today’s digital age, cybersecurity has become an increasingly important concern for educational institutions. The rise in cyberattacks on schools and universities means that implementing effective cybersecurity solutions is no longer optional but a necessity.
Educational institutions have access to a variety of cybersecurity solutions, ranging from firewalls and antivirus software to intrusion detection systems and encrypted communication channels. By implementing these solutions, they can safeguard their networks and sensitive data from potential threats.
As we move forward into an ever-more digital world – protecting our education system must remain a top priority for all involved parties: educators themselves as well as policymakers at every level possible including federal government entities like those working hand-in-hand across international borders!
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Cristian is a Content Editor & Creator at Heimdal®, where he developed a deep understanding of the digital threat landscape. His style resonates with both technical and non-technical readers, proof being in his skill of communicating cybersecurity norms effectively, in an easy-to-understand manner.
