Dive Brief:
- Academia’s openness and desire to collaborate with information has long been seen as a weakness in the industry when it comes to IT.
- But The Atlantic reports corporations that have enjoyed years of locked down internal networks thanks to strict policies that didn’t get any pushback are now struggling with demand for BYOD flexibility and looking to higher ed for strategies.
- One area in which universities have been ahead of their peers is in monitoring network behavior rather than simply relying on a bulletproof shield around data, which corporations are increasingly recognizing is necessary against determined hackers.
Dive Insight:
According to The Atlantic, universities were often targeted as a route to other companies. That was the case in the 2013 infiltration of The New York Times’ systems. But now, universities are seen as an end in and of themselves. They may not have all of the lucrative trade secrets that corporations do, but they have, in many cases, even more personal information. And sometimes those weak points, where personal information is stored, are hard to find on large campuses where people are used to carrying out their tasks fairly autonomously. Hiring a chief information security officer and getting cyber insurance are two strategies for protecting campuses.