More than a data breach – cyber espionage campaign on Higher Education If you’re concerned your … According to ZDNet, one university recently disclosed a data breach that saw the personally identifiable information (PII) of both students and families compromised after an incident in May, and similar incidents were reported earlier this year by other institutions. Indiatoday.in has reported that the popular Chinese smartphone manufacturer, OnePlus, has suffered a significant data breach. According to Kim Milford, executive director of the Research and Education Networks Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC), “there’s nothing new” about the most popular attack strategies. Security breaches occur through hacking, disclosure, physical loss of data, portable, and stationary devices affecting the institutions negatively. Reducing the time it takes to detect a security breach can result in significant savings. And, there is a good chance one of them would be a university. You need to be a step ahead of hackers to save the university from public embarrassment and expensive lawsuits. The manufacturing industry has been an air-gapped environment from the rest of the business and the outside world, if for no other reason than the paranoia that company information could fall into the wrong hands. While education lags behind industries such as finance, healthcare and public administration in total breach volume, Verizon’s “2019 Data Breach Investigations Report” notes an uptick in both the volume of confirmed data disclosure attacks in education — 99 of 382 incidents — and in the variety of threats. Former students are current power brokers, while some of the parents of the current students wield significant influence. HB 1943 Status: Enacted, Act 1030 Amends the Personal Information Protection Act; relates to biometric data generated by automatic measurements of an individual's biological characteristics including fingerprints, faceprint, retina or iris scan, hand geometry, voiceprint analysis, deoxyribonucleic acid, or any other unique biological characteristics of an individual if the characteristics are used by the owner or licensee to uniquely authenticate the individual's identity when the individual accesses a system or acc… The focus by ED on appropriate protocols, technology and training is supported by statistical findings, including the 2019 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report determination that human errors account for 35% of data breaches in the education sector. Education's openness a unique security challenge, Verizon says in data breach report. UConn Health is the academic wing that oversees education in medicine, biomedical research, and clinical care. Access control and data encryption protocols 3. To develop best practices capable of meeting cyber threats head-on, IT leaders must first identify common threat vectors: How are malicious attackers gaining network access? Run every aspect of your business with ticketing, project management, billing and CRM. Breach exposed data of students and their families. This predicament is too lucrative for cybercriminals to turn down. In 2016, Milford says, ransomware was “a huge moneymaker” for threat actors using a one-to-one attack vector; single workstations were frozen, and payouts typically hovered around $250. Here are the top university data breaches in 2019 that shook the cybersecurity world. Two decades old personal and payroll details hacked. Adobe left a database containing 7.5 million Creative Cloud user records exposed publicly. University data breaches is a wakeup call for IT admins, tasked with securing confidential information of students, employees and other stakeholders. According to the Ponemon Institute study, companies that detected a breach in less than 100 days had an estimated average total cost of $3.11 million. Higher Education Data Breaches Draw Response from Federal Agencies Michael Best & Friedrich LLP USA July 29 2019 Higher education institutions have long been a … The author finds that larger more financially well-off schools are targeted and that social security numbers are the most likely type of data stolen. Doug Bonderud is an award-winning writer capable of bridging the gap between complex and conversational across technology, innovation and the human condition. In fact, UConn Health and its parent body, the University of Connecticut are facing a class-action lawsuit following the data breach that puts the identities of several patients at risk. Here, post-secondary institutions benefit from a five-factor approach: Cybersecurity trends offer big-picture views of potential post-secondary risk. Effortlessly and automatically support your businesses IT environment and end-users, from anywhere and at any time. All-in-one IT system monitoring and management platform with powerful automation. Here are the savviest higher education IT leaders, bloggers, podcasters and social media personalities you should follow. The suit was filed by victims who claimed WSU’s data security was at best ‘questionable’. Disclosing the identity of these students may have been a part of international espionage to leverage information as the elites of the world study in this institute. Colleges Optimize Traffic on Busy Residence Hall Networks, Universities Partner with Cities to Boost Budgets for Technology Projects, EDUCAUSE 2018: Software-Defined Networks Advance Research Computing, Q&A: Center for CIO Studies’ Wayne Brown Explains How IT Leaders Need to Communicate, a new public service announcement from IC3 and the FBI, Assessment is the first step in effective cybersecurity, Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment Toolkit (HECVAT), IBM and HBCUs Partner in New Quantum Center, 3 Ways to Adapt Your Cybersecurity Messaging for Generation Z, Simplify Device Procurement with the Right IT Partner, Review: SonicWall TZ400 Firewall Brings Advanced Security to Higher Education, EDUCAUSE 2018: 6 Culture Changes to Pave the Way for Digital Transformation. Malicious actors target institutional data because it pays off. Malware defense mechanisms 5. loss, portable device breach, stationary device breach, or unintended disclosures (Data Breaches n.d.). While education lags behind industries such as finance, healthcare and public administration in total breach volume, Verizon’s “ 2019 Data Breach Investigations Report ” notes an uptick in both the volume of confirmed data disclosure attacks in education — 99 of 382 incidents — and in the variety of threats. According to the 2019 Cost of Data Breach Study by IBM and the Ponemon Institute, the average cost for data breaches in the U.S. educational industry has risen to $142 per capita (or per record lost), which is $45 above the worldwide average. On February 27, 2019, Florida Keys Community College announced a data breach arising from unauthorized access to employee email that occurred between May 5, 2018, and November 5, 2018. Unsecured web applications provide easy access for hackers to gain entry into any business to conduct a variety of crimes. Fact or Fallacy: What’s the Best Way to Improve Campus Wi-Fi Performance? On October 19, the college discovered suspicious activity. Security breaches happen with frightening regularity in higher education. Interestingly, Greenwich is the first university to be fined under the Data Protection Act of 1998. According to the statistic provided by Verizon’s annual Data Breach Investigations Report, the frequency of security breaches affecting universities multiplied almost ten times. With National Cybersecurity Awareness Month highlighting the need for institutions to develop comprehensive strategies that drive widespread ownership of responsibility, it’s the ideal time for colleges to analyze current breach patterns and develop cybersecurity best practices that are both theoretically sound and realistic. Cyberattacks have exposed sensitive information about students’ applications and medical histories , altered grades and attendance records, and jeopardized payroll funds . Every 39 seconds hackers win. Network firewalls Monitoring those systems has brought closer attention to the role of the cybersecurity officer. In higher education, phishing emails and ransomware remain the top threats. Personal data of 326,000 patients compromised. In March 2019, hackers accessed admission information from colleges in Oberlin, Hamilton, and Grinnell. The report deep dives into the evolution of the threat landscape, who is perpetrating attacks, the top attack types, and assets affected by breaches. Higher education institutions are combating these challenges with technical controls, usage policies, and community education efforts. Be on top of everything happening in your infrastructure and neutralize issues before they can cause any real damage — all from a single pane of glass. Universities and colleges hit by cyberattacks don’t just suffer immediate damages. According to Capital One’s statement, no credit card number or log-in credentials were leaked, and less than 1% of Social Security Numbers were compromised. But reducing the impact of pervasive threats — phishing, ransomware and historic vulnerabilities — demands best practices capable of identifying key weaknesses, engaging network users and securing network infrastructure. Learning From Higher Ed Security Breaches By Ken Lynch - Mar 20, 2019 The higher education is not free from data threats and risks whose primary target is their financial security followed by student retention. Now, often dragged kicking and screaming into the connected world of enterprise IT, manufacturing organizations are being exposed to the efficiencies (such as workflow enhancements and improved data analysis) and th… The information was shared on a popular hacking forum where they could be shared with other cyber thieves. How do colleges convert broad threat vectors and specific attack types into real-world, relevant and reliable cybersecurity best practices? Get started within a few clicks and experience the most powerful IT management platform in the industry. The hard drives were used to create a weekly backup of research data which went through several handoffs. Educational institutions have been slow to embrace network security strategies. From a data security perspective, such institutions are important because they hold vast amounts of data belonging to a large portion of the population. The applicants were sent emails, offering them access to confidential information regarding their admission file for a fee. About 200,000 people were affected by the hacking that took place at the Australian National University. The data breach includes names, addresses, date of births, personal emails, tax file numbers, bank details, passport, and academic records. The financial security of higher education is experiencing a bigger threat than student retention. Check out our recent stories from our blog that our editors selected for you, Secure Your Valuable Data With Pulseway Cloud Backup, How to get acquired or merge with another MSP, Pulseway Launches Remote Control for macOS, Download our mobile app Adobe. Hackers not only made money, but also got hold of valuable personal data including names, addresses, birthdays, and so forth. The Fast Facts: More than 4 million of Bulgaria’s 7 million citizens were affected by a security breach in June 2019, which compromised personally-identifiable information and financial records lifted from the country’s tax agency. For example, a recent survey found that after a successful attack, students’ risk perception temporarily increased — even as their overall attitude toward cybersecurity remained indifferent. For those that took more than 100 days, the average data breach cost was $4.21 million — more than $1 million more. The microsite was developed by the university to keep data secure. Even if they do, “paying ransoms emboldens criminals to target other organizations” and may make blackmailed organizations more likely to be targeted again. EDUCAUSE's major policy issues in 2018—information security and breach notification, net neutrality, and web accessibility—will all continue to evolve in 2019, but they will likely be joined by another issue of major interest to EDUCAUSE members: potential federal privacy legislation. An estimated 200 citizens had names, addresses, personal identification numbers, and ID card details shared with media outlets. So, what’s the solution? On January 7, 2019, the college confirmed the identities of the people whose data had been compromised. By 2017, the number of cyber attacks vastly grew to 393 (in 2012 there were only 5). In addition, a new public service announcement from IC3 and the FBI recommends against paying any ransom because there’s no guarantee attackers will provide valid decryption keys. For higher education IT leaders, the fundamental tenets of IoT operational assurance include the ability to automate the discovery and classification of IoT devices, identify baseline IoT behavior, detect anomalies, and proactively enforce security policies when an IoT device or a group of them deviate from acceptable behavior. Written by Betsy Foresman May 10, 2019 | EDSCOOP The education sector is afflicted by many different kinds of threats, from software errors, social engineering attacks and inadequately secured email credentials, according to annual cross-industry analysis of cybersecurity … Regular scans to detect vulnerabilities 4. This research paper provides a literature review of studies on data breaches in higher education and analyzes data on the types of data breaches from 2005-2017. Seamless integrated backup for workstations and servers with disaster recovery capabilities. An MSP Platform that lets you manage the technology needs of small business - simply, efficiently, and from anywhere. It would be “disastrous if any of this information fell into the wrong hands”, he told Times Higher Education. Social Security numbers and personal health data compromised. The 2020 Dean's List: 30 Higher Ed IT Influencers Worth a Follow, Hackers Evolve Attack Methods in Higher Education Breaches, Defense-in-Depth (DiD) Strategies: Protect Higher Ed Users Against Cyberthreats, Solving Evolving Security Challenges for Remote Campuses. These exchanges were poorly monitored, causing malware. January 17, 2019: Security researcher Troy Hunt discovered a massive database on cloud storage site, MEGA, which contained 773 million email addresses and 22 million unique passwords collected from thousands of different breaches dating back to 2008. Msp platform that lets you manage the technology needs of small business -,... 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