Did you know?

Higher ed is a big target for hackers, with cyberattacks surging due in part to remote operations during the pandemic. As recently as this month, Butler County Community College and Lewis and Clark Community College had to temporarily close their campuses to recover from Thanksgiving week cyberattacks.

Schools without a risk assessment and remediation plan risk their Title 4 funding.*
*Gramm Leach Bliley Act

The FBI’s Cyber Division warned this year that criminals are steadily targeting education institutions and attempting to extort them. Schools that don’t prioritize their cybersecurity efforts in 2022 may pay a heavy price:

  • Without strong IT security policies and activities in place, cybersecurity insurance companies may either refuse to insure the institution or charge much higher premiums.
  • Per the Gramm Leach Bliley Act, to be eligible for Title 4 funding you need to have a risk assessment and plan for remediation in place.

To protect the institution from breaches, stay insured, keep premiums lower and remain compliant with laws, colleges should consider these tips for 2022:

1. Have Strong IT Controls in Place

Put in place the tools, personnel, training and practices that will do the following:

  • Detect and identify malicious activity by installing threat detection tools, such as firewalls and loss prevention software.
  • Prevent attacks by assessing security exposures and tightening controls, as well as implementing staff security awareness training.
  • Monitor controls through continuous testing of all detection and prevention activities to ensure they’re working as intended.

2. Clean Up Your Data

The more records you have, the more you pay (insurance is per record) and the larger the scope of your vulnerability and potential information exposure.

3. Establish and Enact Strong Protocols and Policies

Cybersecurity governance ensures your security strategy has teeth. Establish protocols and policies for:

  • Multi-Factor Authentication, which is a security method that requires users to provide two or more verification factors to gain access to a digital resource, for your at-risk personnel like administrators and faculty members where a breach can “take down a school.”
  • Endpoint Protection (EPP), otherwise known as anti-virus software, on devices to detect and prevent file-based malware and malicious activity, and provide remediation capabilities to respond to security incidents
  • MS Office macro protection to prevent these small programs from gaining access to or harming a system.
  • Administrative access privileges to limit users’ ability to install software on their devices.
  • Data backup processes to ensure business continuity after an outage.

4. Ensure You Have the Technical Talent

With competition for IT talent and turnover at an all-time high, that can be a challenge.

Collegis Education can help. Our cybersecurity specialists know higher ed and how to strengthen your systems, networks and data platforms. We’ll help you implement a security strategy and be prepared with training and communications to address the fallout of a cyberattack.

A risk assessment can help you understand your college’s vulnerabilities and what’s on the line if 2022 ends without a comprehensive security strategy in place.

Contact us to get a Cyber Security Risk Assessment

Learn more about the threat of cyberattacks in higher ed.

Collegis Education Higher Ed Cybersecurity Landscape 2022 Ebook

Author: Elise Povejsil

Elise Povejsil is a former marketing manager (content and communications) for Collegis Education. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Conflict Studies from DePauw University.

Categories

Technology Management

Tags

cybersecurity

Published: 12/16/21

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