According to a latest report, Indian education sector is the biggest target of cyber threats. Read on to know more about it…
According to a latest report, India is the most vulnerable to cyber threats to educational institutions and online platforms, followed by the United States, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, and Brazil. The adoptation of remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, digitalisation of education, and the prominence of online learning platforms, according to the report, are all key triggers that widened the attack surface.
Report Findings
According to the report titled, “Cyber Threats Targeting the Global Education Sector”, also noted that data shows a 20% rise in cyber threats to the global education sector in the first three months of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021. The Threat Research and Information Anayltics Division of CloudSEK, a Singapore-based AI-driven Digital Risk Management Enterprise, compiled the report. Thousands of sources which is on the surface, deep, and dark web are scoured by CloudSEK’s XVigil platform to detect cyber threats, data leaks, brand threats, and identity thefts.
The report said “Of the threats detected in Asia and Pacific last year, 58 per cent of them were targeted at Indian or India based educational institutions and online platform. Indonesia was distant second being the target of 10 per cent cyber threats. This included attacks on BYJU’s, IIM Kojhikode and Tamil Nadu’s Directorate of Technical Education,”
The report noted that “Overall, the USA was the second most affected country across the globe with a total of 19 recorded incidents, accounting for 86 per cent of the threats in North America. these include ransomware attacks on prestigious institutions such as Howard University and University of California. In addition, high-risk API vulnaribilities were uncovered in Coursera, the massive open online course provider,”
The growing global education and training market, both online and offline, is estimated to reach USD 7.3 trillion by 2025, according to Darshit Ashara, Principal Threat Researcher at CloudSEK.
Darshit said “This promising outlook is predicated on the expanding education technology market, population growth and increasing digital penetration in developing countries. Hence, it’s no surprise that cybercriminals are gravitating towards entities and institutions in the sector,”
Remote learning adoption by schools, universities, and related entities to combat the disruption caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; large-scale digitisation of educational content material, student data, and documents; and online learning platforms catering to the needs of everyone from preschool children to retired professionals are among the reasons cited in the report as driving the trend. Several cybercriminals are aggressively leaking databases, accesses, vulnerabilities and exploits, and other information belonging to educational institutions on cybercrime forums, according to the report findings.
The report noted “Databases and accesses are the most commonly sought after data types. The databases leaked from educational institutions primarily contain information Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of students and their families, including name, date of birth, email address, phone number, and physical address; website user records and credentials and examination results and scores,”
Cybersecurity Recommendations
Given the scale and significance of the education sector, the experts claimed in the report that it is vital for institutions, students, parents, teachers, and the government to ensure that the information gathered and stored is not leaked and exploited by cybercriminals. Educating users about cyber-attacks, online scams, and phishing campaigns; enacting strong password policies and enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA); regularly updating and patching software, systems, and networks; maintaining multiple backups, both online and offline, in separate and secure locations; and monitoring logs for unusual traffic and activity to websites and other applications are among the recommendations mentioned in the report.
The report added “The institutions should block illegitimate IP addresses and deactivate port forwarding using network firewalls. They should perform real-time monitoring of the internet to identify and mitigate low-hanging threats, such as misconfigured apps, exposed data, and leaked accesses, that are leveraged by cybercriminals to carry out large scale attacks. “The students, parents, faculty, and staff should avoid clicking on suspicious emails, messages and links; not download or install unverified apps; use strong passwords and enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) across accounts,”