Protecting higher education from cyber attacks

With the higher education sector at increased risk of cyber attacks, cybersecurity professionals remain in high demand.

However, a recent white paper by Talent suggests that the salaries, skills and experience needed to keep the sector safe are severely lacking.

Following the white paper release, industry leaders attended a virtual event where they shared their thoughts on what these cyberthreats were, as well as exploring strategies on how organisations can best protect themselves.

Cybersecurity experts Jeff Whitton and Scott Flower joined Steve Tompkins, Client Relationship Manager at Talent, to discuss these strategies. Key insights included:

• “We can’t leave people behind who can’t afford security. We really need to focus on collaboration.”
• “We need people who are capable of self-reflection. That are good under pressure, not just people who know how to tick boxes. We need people who can think creatively about what they’re seeing and how to address what they’re seeing.”
• “Students need to be made aware: if they’re working on sensitive topics, if they’re working on new technology, if they’re working on different areas of innovation, then they are a target — whether they like it or not. Threat actors want to use them as a link in the chain.”
• “AI has enabled more widespread industrialisation of hacking because people can just type in, give me a code to do an SQL injection attack.”
• “Machines are learning about humans better than humans know about humans. Worrying and interesting at the same time, but that’s the sort of problems that AI is going to give us. They’re going to understand human behaviour. Better than most individuals understand human behaviour and their own behaviour.”
   

Image credit: iStock.com/da-kuk