77% of security breaches in the education sector occurred at colleges and universities.1
PRC Chronology of Data Breaches
The Challenge
Colleges and universities are often vulnerable targets for security threats – both cyber and physical – that can cause severe damage to an institution and compromise the safety of students and faculty. As the new year begins, schools continue to have a heightened focus on putting the right protective measures in place to ensure the security of their students.
Many schools routinely perform campus-wide security audits to asess the risk of their current infrastructure and procedures. However, upgrades for campus security equipment such as cameras, access cards and updates to the hardware and software of a school’s IT infrastructure typically come in a reactive fashion after an issue occurs. Since this cost is usually not in the budget, business officers are often left struggling to pay for the upgrades, at a time when they are needed most.
Campus Security Risk Assessment
Every school would agree that security is a priority on campus. However, what varies greatly is the quality of security procedures and policies that are in place at any given institutions, with schools evaluating how prone they are to risk on an ongoing basis. After evaluating a campus-wide security audit, schools typically find themselves in one of three categories.
The Solution
A proactive strategy to regularly review physical and virtual access points, evaluate security policies and procedures and replace outdated equipment can help to reduce your risk of threats on campus. Keeping up with the latest information on cybercriminals, zero-day attacks and threats to the physical campus environment can be daunting as the threats to schools evolve and become more sophisticated every day. Putting the right resources in place and developing proactive funding models to invest in and support campus security can help your school minimize security risks.
Source1: PRC Chronology of Data Breaches