CYBER SECURITY IN EDUCATION SECTOR
Schools, colleges and universities are frequently targeted by cyber criminals. Is your organisation proactive, resilient and ready to handle attacks?
Get In Touch
We will not share your details with third parties.
Cyber security in the education sector
Schools and colleges are targeted by Organised crime groups (OCG) to steal personally identifiable information (PII) and to carry out frauds. This information is further sold in the underground markets and is leveraged by fraudsters for identity frauds.
High education and universities involved in research and scientific projects are often targeted by nation state actors to steal useful data including intellectual property. The constant challenge remains managing a good balance of managing assets and protecting these assets with proactive cyber security approach.
What are the key security challenges ?
- Safeguarding student and staff data
- Balancing act against legacy systems, segregations
- Segregations at user, system and environment level
- Protecting multiple sites with standardised approach
- Ensuring compliance (PCI DSS, GDPR)
- Validating mitigations against ransomware attacks
Security challenges in the education sector
In 2019, a report by digital services organisation Jisc reported that penetration testers had 100% success rate during multiple assessments carried out against UK universities. This directly relates to the security posture of organisations lacking cyber hygiene. Technical security assessments are the truest form of assessing gaps in your security controls, and analysing these gaps to find the relevant solutions (could be processes, planned or long term strategic objectives).
Phishing, ransomware and lack of security awareness have been the top three security issues exploited time and again by criminals. All three of these are low cost, high returns yielding attacks making it an easy business opportunity for crime groups and nation state actors.
More areas such as default configurations around Office 365 tenancy could prove fatal in case of an event. Office 365 best security practices implementation is comparatively (to infrastructure, applications) less resource intensive and should be considered to raise email security profile of an organisation.
Cloud security is an important aspect for any organisation and security strategy should contain secure configuration and validation exercises against cloud assets. These may include insider threat attack scenarios, web application security assessments, securing against API security risks and network security assessments.
What are your key security questions?
- Is your management up to date with cyber risk profile of your organisation?
- How are you safeguarding student and staff data at rest and in transit?
- How are supply chain risks managed?
- Are you carrying out card payment processing PCI DSS compliance checks?
- Is your organisation resilient to ransomware attacks?
- Are you validating new projects, deployments from a third party?
Education Sector Experience
This section refers to specific project based experiences in this sector. These were conducted at universities, private schools and private organisations.
Key Projects
- M&A Due Diligence for a leading education sector software developer
- Cyber assurance against cloud infrastructure rollout
- Wireless Security Assessments
- Web Application Security Assessments (Staff and Student Portals)
- University wide Transformation Projects (Oracle, AIX)
- Internal Infrastructure involving password reviews, patching, and active directory security policy reviews
Need advice or help from our friendly team?
Recent Blog Entries
3 Principles of Information Security (Threats & Policies)
Read about 3 principles of information security and difference between information and cyber security. Further details include basics around security policies and their importance.
Top 7 API Security Risks (including prevention tips)
With APIs meteoric rise, most of our important data is consumed by API endpoints. It is important to ensure security is not an after thought. Read about top API security risks, attack examples and prevention measures.
Brexit and Data Protection | UK GDPR Law
Explaining the differences between DPA vs GDPR, for those wondering the differences between DPA and the newest GDPR legislation.
Top 6 Healthcare Cyber Security Threats and Best Practices (2021)
Healthcare troubles have worsened in 2020, facing two-pronged attack – Pandemic and Cyber Threats. Read our article detailing cyber security threats and best practices to follow in the healthcare sector in 2021. Discover more.
Facts About Computer Viruses & Malware (including 6 Virus Myths)
Read about interesting fun facts about computer viruses, their history and types. A fun read to beat your post lunch blues.
eCommerce Security : Cyber Threats & Best Practices (2021)
eCommerce platforms such as BigCommerce, Magento, Shopify are an attractive target for attackers. Learn what are the cyber threats facing eCommerce sector and best security practices to secure these businesses.
OWASP API Security Top 10 (With examples & fixes)
OWASP API Security Top 10 are the go to standard for API security. This article presents attacks, examples and how to prevent API security attacks. Discover more on thecyphere.com.
OWASP Top 10 Application Security Risks (With Examples & Recommendations)
OWASP Top 10 Web Application Security Risks are the go to benchmark against web application attacks. This article presents attacks, examples and how to prevent these web application attacks. Discover more on thecyphere.com.
Top 7 Office 365 Security Best Practices (includes Actionable Tips)
Office 365 security best practices with actionable tips to improve your organisations’ security posture. We highly believe that with products, it’s more important to get the best out of product features first before investing into high end consultancies or shopping new products. We hope this article offers a useful advice for your organisation.
Red Team vs Penetration Testing – Which one is the right choice for your business?
With cyber threats increasing at exponential rate, defensive techniques must evolve at the same rate. Red Team vs Penetration Testing – Which one is the right choice for your business? Both have pros and cons, but what’s best for your environment. Whether you should do it, when not to do it, benefits, costs and vendor selections.