Do You Know Where Your Data Is?

Educational institutions are a data treasure trove.

• By Isaac Kohen
• Jun 12, 2018

Data breaches occur on a weekly basis. Educational institutions are not immune to a data breach. Rather, they’re instead a data treasure trove, full of student email addresses, physical addresses and financial information. The reality, educational institutions are not safe guarding their student’s data and that data is being easily exploited by malicious criminals.

These institutions are being targeted and the frequencies of attacks are picking up in volume. According to a 2016 Campus Technology Report, the number of lost, stolen or compromised data records increased to 164 percent in the first 6 months of 2017.

Further, a recent IBM report showed just how costly a data breach is for higher institutions and the true worth of their data. The cost of a data breach for a U.S. educational institution is higher than any other sector. The average cost per compromised data record is $245 in comparison to $225 of all U.S. organizations and $200 of education institutions worldwide. U.S. education data is leading the way.

Educational institutions are being targeted my malicious criminals daily, but when it comes to the news, their data breach exposure becomes buried by more high profile companies like Facebook and Equifax. These educational organizations are being targeted in all facets of their identity from student service accounts to alumni associations. Recent data breaches include the Clemson Alumni Association with data exposure due to a third-party security lapse. And a Fresno State University data breach that lead to more than 15,000 victims affected when a flash drive with information was stolen - insider threat?

The point remains, data breaches need to be on the security priority list for higher institutions and administration needs to look closely into best security practices.

The first step in securing data is to understand where your most precious data is located. It’s very hard to protect everything and keep a watchful eye on all your data. Knowing where your most sensitive data is, is a fundamental first step in data security. To successfully start this process, appoint a data steward to inventory critical data and ensure a robust plan exists for data protection.

Designating a position to lead this movement is important, because often these duties are filtered onto IT employees. IT employees are generally overworked and overwhelmed. By designating a team and leader to head data security, you’re ensuring success. Lastly, data security isn’t an IT problem, or an administration problem. It’s everyone’s problem, and it’s everyone’s responsibility. Once critical data is classified and an employee is assigned to it, upper management needs to be invested in the protection of that data, and the importance of keeping the data safe needs to be talked regularly at board meetings.