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According to new research released by Proofpoint, top universities lag in cybersecurity.
Proofpoint is one of the top cybersecurity companies which provides services to address cybersecurity issues. The company was the first SaaS-based cybersecurity and compliance company to generate more than $1 billion in revenue during 2020.
The research found that 97% of the top universities in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia are putting their students, staff, and alums at risk of email-based impersonation attacks.
“Higher education institutions hold masses of sensitive personal and financial data, perhaps more so than any industry outside healthcare. This, unfortunately, makes these institutions a highly attractive target for cybercriminals,” said Ryan Kalember, EVP, Cybersecurity Strategy of Proofpoint.
The research methodology was based on Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) analysis of the top ten universities in each country. DMARC analyses email messages to see if they come from a legitimate sender. This is done by looking at the sender’s Domain Name System (DNS) records to see if they match the message’s headers.
Full findings show that in Australia, only two universities implemented Quarantine measures; six used Monitor, while only one implemented a Reject policy. The threat is further emphasised as learning modalities shift to remote and hybrid learning.
Universities are urged to implement security controls, including multi-factor authentication, DMARC, Sender Policy Framework (SPF), email encryption, data loss prevention (DLP), email filtering, user training, and continuous monitoring.
“The pandemic and rapid shift to remote learning has further heightened the cybersecurity challenges for tertiary education institutions and opened them up to significant risks from malicious email-based cyber attacks, such as phishing,” added Kalember.
“With the shift to remote learning and now hybrid learning, these figures will continue to climb,”
Universities are increasingly attractive targets for cybercriminals due to the large amounts of sensitive data they possess. Hence, they must ensure that sufficient security measures are implemented for the safety of their constituents.
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