Impact and Solutions of Cyber security for Higher Education Institutions

The COVID-19 epidemic significantly altered both our planet and how businesses function. Additionally, it has fundamentally altered how education is provided and obtained. Around the world, educators have made significant changes to the way they work, learn, and teach. While this resulted to a significant increase in access to education for many and a bigger student pool, it also produced a ripe and wider attack surface for cyber thieves.

A cyber security survey conducted by Custom Writings, a reputable essay writing service, found that cyber attacks on educational institutions have skyrocketed. Higher education institutions are now more likely to experience cyber security threats than they were in the past.

Impact

Cyber security breaches at educational institutions affect more than simply their day-to-day operations and bottom lines. They jeopardize student information and damage the schools' overall integrity and reputation, which have been meticulously constructed over time.

Systems are brought to their knees, data is lost, and staff and student anxiety and stress levels soar. Universities spend millions of dollars trying to recover from cyber attacks, and the recovery process itself may take months while they look for the compromise before making any attempts to restore it.

Universities frequently seek the advice of cyber security consultancies on how to defend against these assaults, however due to the attacks' continual growth, there has been little relief for universities and schools.

Why Are Colleges and Universities a Target?

Of course, the most common targets of cyber attacks are well-known businesses and industries. However, because they hold a lot of personal information, such as medical records and sophisticated project research papers, in their system databases, higher education institutions have turned into a major target.

major target.

We'll look more closely at a few crucial factors that contribute to universities being actively targeted by cyber criminals.

• Universities take a more open and transparent approach to its infrastructure than their industrial counterparts do. These colleges and universities make sure that parents and students may access their websites quickly and effortlessly. This has unintentionally made it very easy for cybercriminals to get in.
• Early adopters of digital tools and internet access include several prestigious international universities. Their systems contain priceless archives of information and historical study materials. They are therefore desirable candidates for data theft. The problem is made worse by the fact that school networks aren't necessarily the most cutting-edge or current, unlike business networks. As a result, they are no match for the cutting-edge and very sophisticated technologies used by contemporary cyber criminals
• The lack of talent in universities' IT or cyber security departments is another factor contributing to their vulnerability to cyber attacks. The majority of technology graduates are seduced by the alluring compensation packages provided by businesses like Apple and Microsoft. As a result, educational institutions often struggle to attract top people who can keep their cyber security infrastructure strong and up to date. This is because their budgets aren't as deep as those of the corporate titans.

Trends in Common Cyber security Attacks

We'll now examine different cyber security attack types that might provide hazards to institutions of higher education as well as countermeasures.

• PHISHING: One of the most prevalent cyber security risks we face today is, but it's not always simple to spot a phishing assault. A form of social engineering attack is phishing. Simply explained, phishing is when a cyber criminal assumes a false identity to con someone into disclosing sensitive or critical information or tricking them into downloading harmful software that would infect their system with a virus or malware. These fraudsters frequently utilise well-liked subjects or incredibly alluring offers to get visitors into clicking unusual links or downloading risky files.
• RANSOM WARE: After obtaining your sensitive information or gaining access to your critical files, fraudsters may keep it hostage in exchange for exorbitant ransom payments. Attacks using typically try to do this. Thus, students who naively seek out essay writing assistance or online writing support frequently fall victim to phishing attempts, which can then result in more significant ransom ware attacks on the network they were utilizing.
• THREATS THAT ARE ADVANCING: As technologies change and advance, cyber security attacks do as well. File less malware is one that should be mentioned because it has recently become more prevalent. The user does not need to download or install any code to use this. Instead, it launches and carries out these assaults using the tools that are already present in the system. While your programmers are still running in the background, it forces legitimate apps to carry out risky attacks. Since it leaves no traces, this type of attack is difficult to identify and causes most antivirus programmers a lot of trouble.

Solutions

Even though there is no denying the imminent threat of cyber attacks and the likelihood that almost every company or institution will experience one at some point in its history, there are a few precautions universities and schools can take to increase their protection from threats and their resilience in the event of an incident.

•  CYBER SECURITY EDUCATION: Both faculty and students should get pertinent cyber awareness instruction. They require assistance in comprehending their critical position in organisational cyber security and how frequently they can be the ones to stop phishing or ransom ware attacks from having any lasting effects on the organization 
• ENSURE THAT ALL SYSTEMS RECEIVE FREQUENT UPDATES. Operating systems, browsers, and other software should always be updated since every patch closes security holes and adds protection against fresh threats. This is a straightforward excellent practice that can significantly improve the cyber security of educational establishments
• BE PREPARED Although it is crucial to raise awareness and impart the value of proper security practices, this may not be enough. You should be ready for the possibility that your college or university will still be attacked. Make sure your team can resort to a solid incident response strategy or ransom ware response checklist in the event of an occurrence. Visual workflows and tested reaction plans can actually help to cut through the noise and take the appropriate actions when a crisis strikes because it becomes tough to think clearly at such time.

Conclusion

The senior management and board members are accountable for safeguarding cyber information in universities. The daily users of the institutional systems and networks, however, are the staff and students. When it comes to providing total cyber resilience, this causes a small rift.

It should be underlined that building a more secure and stable future for higher education learning depends on our ability to comprehend the vulnerabilities of institutions, how these cyber attacks operate, and how to stop them.

The government should also provide ongoing assistance to higher education institutions in order to strengthen their infrastructure, as well as any necessary direction and cyber security consulting from outside professionals.

Employing a strong, reliable team of cyber security professionals is another essential to overcoming upcoming issues, as this article briefly mentions. Of course, given the limited talent and tight university funds, this is easier said than done. However, there are a number of workarounds, such as using virtual CISOs.

Although higher education institutions face significant cyber security difficulties and substantial remediation costs, the potential financial and reputational dangers associated with poor defense are probably even worse. Effective cyber security solutions can eventually pay for themselves over time, according to institutions throughout the higher education landscape.