For IT professionals in higher education, cybercrime has become
much more sophisticated than hackers simply sending out email blasts in hopes
of finding an unsuspecting recipient. Criminals now create fake online
ecosystems that look so real that even the most skeptical individual may be
convinced they’re legitimate.
Then there’s the problem of information shared on social
media, which is so plentiful that it makes it easy to gather information about
an organization and create targeted messages that are even more persuasive.
“No matter how much training we give a faculty or staff
member about how to recognize a suspicious message, it’s hard to blame them for
failing to recognize a message that is crafted and customized to look as
innocuous as possible,” Nicci Fagan, director of Central and Eastern U.S.
higher education sales for CDW-G, wrote in an EdTech post.
Technology solutions enable IT pros to stay up-to-date,
but communication is the key to security. Users need to understand just how advanced
these attacks can be and the serious threat they pose.
“IT
staff who develop campus awareness initiatives may find it useful to educate
users not only on specific signs to watch out for—for example, characteristics
of phishing emails—but also on the broader context of hacking itself,” Fagan
said. “Many users may not realize, for example, the extent to which hacking has
become a big business, complete with the tools and resources to craft effective
deception.”