What Happens When Students Bring Malware to Campus?

With cyberattacks on the rise, targeting individuals as well as institutions, campus IT managers have to be more vigilant than ever to protect their networks, especially given the physical and financial difficulties that shutdowns due to ransomware and other attacks can cause. But trying to secure against all the ways people access campus networks feels like a high-tech game of Whac-A-Mole. So, what can IT managers do to prevent cyberattacks?

A Combination of Tools Offers the Best Defense Against Cyberthreats

The first thing that IT managers need to consider is that it’s impossible to manage what EDUCAUSE calls “the perimeter” — the devices and cloud services that may have access to an institution’s networks — and that they should work to protect their data instead. The organization recommends a balance of data security measures with traditional security models that focus on devices accessing the network. Among the data security practices they recommend: inventory systems, adopt zero-trust practices, use data loss prevention tools and manage user identities.

IT managers can also separate critical networks from the general campus network, either internally or via third-party cloud services. Jenay Robert, a senior researcher at EDUCAUSE, cites the example of San Diego State University, which used Amazon Web Services to create a secure enclave platform for research projects.

READ MORE: Cloud infrastructure entitlement management protects against multicloud threats.

“This platform ensures secure environments for handling regulated data, meeting IT security compliance, and maintaining NIST 800-171 controls and strict enclave separation,” writes Robert. “It provides managed services for data ingress/egress, logging, and deployments; supports standardized system images; and allows automated tool deployments and future service additions to meet evolving researcher needs.”

Why Educating End Users Can Keep Them Safe

Of course, user education is still one of the primary ways to make sure networks stay safe. The more users are aware of threats and how they are introduced to campus networks, the more vigilant they can be.

However, deciding how much trust and transparency to include as part of a cybersecurity and privacy policy is a balancing act. Giving end users more agency over their technology use can be educational but requires more work on the IT side, which can be hard on IT teams that are already stretched thin. Too much transparency can also make an institution more vulnerable to cyberattacks.

To fight the fatigue, Robert cites a program at California State University, Monterey Bay. The university set up a cybersecurity awareness program that included a game to teach students about best practices, hosted in-person panel discussions on the topic, and held a graphic design contest, all under the banner “Cybersecurity Spring 2024.”

UP NEXT: Automating security tasks can ease the burden on university IT departments.

EDUCAUSE recommends keeping users in the loop on cybersecurity. For instance, having an advisory group consisting of a cross-section of users will help IT managers better understand user needs when creating and changing data security policies. Regular communication is also critical, as is the giving users the ability to track who has access to their personal data and how it’s used.

But, the organization warns, IT managers will never please everyone with their security strategy, so expectations must be set for how they will address user input even when they cannot incorporate it.

There is a place for artificial intelligence in establishing these policies, even as it as seen as an increasing threat. “AI tools can make training more accessible by accommodating different learning [needs], formats, and languages,” notes the EDUCAUSE report. It recommends that IT departments maintain personal engagement with users and offer traditional high-touch training for those who would rather have in-person education on the topic.

Because of all these factors, EDUCAUSE’s Muscanell finds these crossroads fascinating in dealing with cybersecurity.

“These factors, in addition to others, will intersect to redefine which devices and systems are most vulnerable, shaping the future of cybersecurity and privacy protection,” she says.