Alert, secure, evacuate – every institution is well-prepared with a fire emergency plan. This guide for acute situations enables a swift response, and the planned rescue procedures mesh seamlessly. A thorough understanding of fire hazards and countermeasures makes targeted preparation possible. This is more difficult when it comes to new types of threats such as cyber attacks. Attacks involving phishing, malware and the like are constantly evolving and becoming increasingly complex. Defence measures must therefore be continuously adapted. Large institutions such as universities, which hold a great deal of valuable personal data, are often targeted by cyber attacks. But how can universities defend themselves against cyber attacks?
Emergency plan: What can a university do in the event of a cyber attack?
In the field of fire safety, there is ideally an emergency plan setting out the next steps to be taken in the event of an emergency. This approach is also possible in the case of cyber attacks – however, due to the high complexity and rapid evolution of attack methods, an emergency plan in this context requires significant time and financial resources. You can read here what such a multi-step emergency plan for IT security might look like.
A simpler solution is to raise awareness of cyber attacks within your own organisation or university and to publicise the contact details of emergency contacts (for example, via an IT emergency card listing all emergency contacts). Numerous universities emphasise on their IT security websites the importance of secure email practices or strong passwords for university accounts.
How could an emergency plan for cyber attacks look like? - Photo: Peter H., PixabaySafe Campus Browsing – a helping hand for universities
The Safe Campus Browsing security tool, developed by Studo, can play a key role in universities’ IT security contingency plans. Using Safe Campus Browsing, IT managers at universities can immediately block malicious websites in the Studo browser and centrally report them to the blacklist services of other web browsers. The service is free and provides an all-in-one solution for emergencies. This ensures that all users of the Studo browser are protected immediately (from the moment the IT manager reports the issue until the next time the app is launched). Users of other browsers will be protected once the relevant blacklist provider has blocked the malicious website – depending on the blacklist provider, this can take up to 72 hours.
Learn more about Safe Campus Browsing. If you are an IT or security manager at a university, we would be happy to provide you with the tool. If you are interested, please contact us by email.
Are you a provider of a campus management system? Safe Campus Browsing can be integrated directly into your CMS via a signed link and assigned as a role to the relevant IT or security managers. Please also contact us in this regard if you wish to integrate Safe Campus Browsing into your CMS. In particular, the simple forwarding of dangerous links to all relevant blacklisting services is an excellent way to respond quickly and efficiently to attacks.
Just as with a fire, time is of the essence when it comes to cyber attacks. The quicker we respond to a threat from phishing, malware or online fraud, the more students and university staff can be protected. By immediately blocking malicious websites in the Studo browser, as many Studo users as possible are protected – and, through the central reporting service to all blacklist providers, all other affected users are also protected via the respective safe browsing technologies such as Phishing Protection, Google Safe Browsing, SmartScreen, Protected Browsing or Fraudulent Website Warning in other web browsers.
Cyberattacks: Quick reactions and common sense
All in all, users need a basic understanding of cyberattacks and common sense to spot an attack quickly. “Could this email be genuine? Who is the sender? Would the university IT department ask me to change my password via email?” Asking these questions helps to scrutinise suspicious emails.
Time is also of the essence, which is why it is wise to have an emergency plan in place for serious incidents or an emergency card with key IT security contacts (for staff and students). To enable university IT departments to act quickly, Studo now offers the all-in-one blacklist service Safe Campus Browsing. This immediately protects all Studo users at the university and reports the malicious website to all other blacklist providers. With these precautions in place, it is possible to respond effectively and promptly to the negative effects of cyber attacks.
