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.