Schools, Colleges & Universities Are A Breeding Ground For
Computer Terrorists, Hackers,
Phishers & Man in The Middle Brutal Attacks
By Nick Ashton, CEO/CTO, CommSmart Global Group of Companies.
Just like
the prison system, schools, colleges and universities are a breeding/training grounds
for illegal activities. Not just gangs,
drugs, perverted sexual activity, it includes the lucrative computer hacking,
phishing and man in the middle brutal attackers.
The
Internet connects them worldwide to every opportunity to access corporate,
personal and governmental information.
It is not Six Degrees of
Separation anymore! The connections
are solid and available. If they are not
sure, there is an under/above ground support network that will teach and share
in the massive revenues that are being accrued minute by minute by these
criminals.
Computer infiltration
is more profitable then the drug or human trafficking marketplace. It is not just the money being made by the
sale of SSN#’s, Bank Cards, personal information, corporate secrets, patents
and the inner most working of the Fortune 500 companies. It is the government
information that can be used against us.
It is one
thing to lose your Driver’s License or a credit card, it is the energy, time,
money and pure frustration of replacing them that is a major issue.
Now, if it
is stolen via a computer data hack or phishing expedition through someone else,
like a retail operation, you still have the same steps to go through with the
added concern of all your information is out there being used by criminals.
The sad
fact is, you personally and corporations are not listening!
It is
SERIOUS and getting worse day by day.
It is not IF it is going to happen to you, it is WHEN! Then it is too late…
Believe it
or not, there are companies who have developed the solution for these
issues. Trusted Device is more than one
step ahead of the situation and there to assist with virtually zero managerial
impact on the day to day running of your IT requirements. Not a new company,
they have been protecting Europe for over twenty years.
Although
some schools, colleges and universities will have expensive security in place,
that sadly is not doing the job that is demanded today, Trusted Device overlays the
existing system without having to replace or make radical changes.
In our case it is Plug and
Secure!
Just ask the IT/Trust and Security Director at the
University of Maryland how they are feeling regarding the outright criminal act
of stealing 300,000 Social Security Numbers and the need now to spending monies
on credit protection for those people for at least the next year. This is a reactive move, which should not be
needed if you are PROACTIVE!
Universities have long been a favorite target for hackers
bent on pilfering private data for identity theft and exploitation.
Since 2005, when breaches at universities began being
recorded, an average of 1,268,394 records have been exposed in the US per year.
Numbers have been declining, however. In 2011, a reported
478,490 records were breached. 2013 it has built yet again and 2014 is not off
to a good start!
To complicate matters, higher education has a reputation
for employing looser data security protocols in general, making those
susceptible to accidental data loss and exposure.
The breadth and volume of personal data collected by
universities, coupled with high turnover and a generally technically un-savvy
population, makes the problem of data loss at institutions nearly epidemic
in nature.
A prominent educational group suffered damages from
highly skilled students hacking their network, allowing them to change student
grades and accessing upcoming tests and exams.
Investigating the source of the hacks revealed that
students hacked the login web-portal installing Trojans on teacher/professor
computers to obtain their usernames/passwords.
During an initial pilot program of 30.000 teachers and
professors, Trusted Device’ s solutions provided all known and identified laptops,
tablets and smartphones with short lived certificates to secure data in motion.
As a result, students who still manage to obtain the
teacher/professor’s authentication credentials through Malware or Phishing, are
unable
to use them, since Trusted Device authenticates the laptop, Tablet
or Smartphone instead of the user.
With the Trusted Device solution being software
based, cost could be significantly reduced when comparing to traditional
physical security tokens.
Maintenance wise the solution required around 0.1 FTE to
manage once up and running and could also be offered as a managed service by
the providing partner.
Since the Trusted Device solution makes use of
standards, existing school and university network infrastructure could be
re-used, requiring no additional investments.
Additionally the Trusted Device solution scaled sufficiently
to allow the 300,000 students in the pilot group to also make use of the
solution, allowing for secure read access to their privacy sensitive school
files.
There are three
video overviews below, the first is an Education overview of the Trusted Device Solution, the second, a Trusted Device overview and costing, the third,
a more technical overview of the system as we know your IT department will have
questions.
WE are in the NOW and
KEEP YOU; in the KNOW…
Call: +1 (614)
655-1247
Email: info@commsmart.us
Copyright 2015
