Security News > 2021 > February > How cyberattacks can threaten colleges and universities
As education has moved from in-classroom teaching to remote learning, colleges and universities have had to set up technologies that open the door to greater security risks.
A report published Tuesday by cybersecurity provider BlueVoyant looks at the security threats challenging schools of higher learning and offers suggestions on how to combat them.
From 2019 to 2020, ransomware attacks against universities jumped by 100%, according to BlueVoyant.
Attackers also started demanding larger sums of money from colleges as the average cost of a ransomware attack in 2020 was $447,000.
More than one-third of all data breaches were related to tools used for remote learning, such as Zoom, Chegg and ProctorU. The security protection set up by colleges and universities isn't necessarily on par with the defenses used by corporations and enterprises.
In its analysis, BlueVoyant found that many universities had unsecured ports related to remote desktop and online databases.