Industries

Education

Cybersecurity in Education

With 819 cybersecurity incidents in 2020, Verizon found that educational establishments experienced the sixth-highest number of cyber incidents out of 20 sectors in their 2020 Data Breach Investigations report. The Education sector is most vulnerable to cyberattacks after the Finance, Healthcare, Information and Manufacturing industries.

Cyberattacks Against Higher Education Institutes on the Rise

Education institutions are targeted by cybercriminals for a variety of reasons, and financial gain is just one aspect. Schools and universities are responsible for safeguarding extensive amounts of sensitive information about students and staff, valuable intellectual property, and world-class research, which makes them a convenient target for cybercriminals.

Ransomware attacks on colleges increased by 100% between 2019 and 2020, reports BlueVoyant’s Cybersecurity in Higher Education report. According to the same report, the average ransom demanded for these attacks was around $450k.

What’s even more alarming is that 67% of these colleges do not have any proper security measures for their email systems, making them vulnerable to botnet targeting.

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Insight

Cyberattacks in Education Sector

1,327

Breaches

Among the 1,327 data breaches in the education sector, it was revealed that 24.5 million records had been exposed since 2005 due to 1,327 breaches. More than 75% of those breaches occurred in the higher education sector.

87%

Establishments Affected

According to RSA Conference data, 87% of educational establishments have experienced at least one successful cyberattack.

32M

Personal Records Compromised

According to AttitlaSec, data security breaches in the education sector were responsible for 13% of all breaches during the first half of 2017. This amounted to some 32 million personal records being compromised.

85%

Percent of universities that believe IT security needs more funding

According to PurpleSec Stats, 85% of universities agree that IT security must receive more funding to ensure the integrity of critical research data.

1st

Education has the highest rate of ransomware across all industries

In a study analyzing almost 20,000 companies against the growing threat of ransomware in 2016, data scientists found education had the highest rate of ransomware across all industries. That is three times higher than the healthcare industry and ten times higher than finance.

Education Sector

The Challenges of Cybersecurity in Education

The education industry is highly vulnerable, and the following are just a few of the cybersecurity challenges the education industry is facing on a daily basis.

As threat actors continue to show no signs of slowing down their attacks and institutions find themselves racing to implement more sustainable data backup and recovery processes, one undeniable shift seen across the entire education industry is that of both technology companies and the schools themselves finally making student privacy and security a greater priority. Unfortunately, the integration of more effective EdTech security solutions across school networks is only one piece of the highly complex data management puzzle that seemingly makes institutions a historically easy target for cyber attacks.

Email-Based Threats

Email-based threats are common in the Education sector, resulting in phishing, malware and successful ransomware attacks. According to an InfoSec Institute Survey conducted in 2019, phishing and social engineering remain the top-most threats to education.

Email-Based Threats Email-based threats are common in the Education sector, resulting in , and successful ransomware attacks. According to an InfoSec Institute Survey conducted in 2019, phishing and remain the top-most threats to education.

Lack of Cybersecurity Awareness

Lack of cybersecurity awareness is another huge issue in the education sector. Teachers and staff are not trained against any type of cyber threats, be it malware, phishing or ransomware. Therefore, they are vulnerable victims to simple social engineering attacks.

Lack of Cybersecurity Awareness Lack of cybersecurity awareness is another huge issue in the education sector. Teachers and staff are not trained against any type of cyber threats, be it malware, phishing or ransomware. Therefore, they are vulnerable victims to simple social engineering attacks.

Inadequate Resources

Educational institutions also lack in navigating security compliance policies for protecting their framework. There are no such departments in these institutions who could actively pay attention to all security compliance policies and implement them carefully.

Inadequate Resources Educational institutions also lack in navigating security compliance policies for protecting their framework. There are no such departments in these institutions who could actively pay attention to all security compliance policies and implement them carefully.

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Security Solutions for EdTech & Institutions

Education Technology (EdTech) is an emerging industry as more educational institutions are making huge changes to their infrastructure by incorporating newer technologies with a great focus on network security.

Emergence of EdTech

Education Technology has evolved over the last 20 years. It was estimated that the global education technology market will be worth $76.4 billion in 2019. Technologies such as cloud are now widely used to host LMS systems and virtual classes for the students. There is often no rigid security infrastructure implemented for these systems, which ultimately results in increased exposure to cyber threats.

This evolution will continue into the future with more advancements and increased probability of new cyber threats. Notwithstanding, the only way to prevent these attacks and reduce risk exposure, is to implement an effective end-to-end incident readiness and response system such as BreachQuest’s Priori Tool to continuously monitor and prevent potential threats.

Continuously Monitor Your Vendors

The Institutions often do not have sufficient resources to construct and manage their own systems from scratch, therefore, they have to rely on third-parties for different services. These services could be anything such as an LMS system or other small integrations.

These vendors should be carefully assessed before entering into a formal business relationship. Nonetheless, Third Party vendors will always present a risk to their customers, which needs to be accounted for and managed carefully. Continuous monitoring solutions such as BreachQuest’s Priori Platform must be implemented for instant visibility and fast response to contain threats before they cause any potential damage.

Malware, Phishing & Ransomware Prevention

Email is the biggest gateway for malware, phishing and ransomware threats in any education institution. The students and staff are not trained to identify these threats. Moreover, malicious emails are also difficult to filter out, especially when attackers rely solely on advanced social engineering techniques.

In order to reduce the risk of exposure to cyber threats, cyber security training is essential. However, most education institutions lack the funds to properly invest in robust cyber training measures for staff and students alike. Consequently, BreachQuest’s Priori Platform can be used as a backup plan as it continuously monitors for any malicious actions that might be triggered by someone inside an institute.

Malware, Phishing & Ransomware Prevention

Conclusion

Why BreachQuest?

The Education sector is highly vulnerable to ransomware, malware and phishing attacks and these attacks cannot entirely be prevented due to the lack of investment in technical countermeasures, as well as formal cybersecurity training for staff and students. Therefore, education institutions require a simple, cost effective, yet effective security backup plan to monitor, contain and respond to security threats with continuous visibility.

Our Priori Platform and our Response teams offers Ransomware Response Recovery services, where our expert teams use a collaborative approach to create a data recovery strategy and remediate all threats.

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