Safe Campus Browsing

Safe Campus Browsing is a service that protects users at different universities from phishing, malware and fraud attacks. The technology integrates multiple services to provide European higher education institutions with a free and fast all-in-one blacklist service.

Safe Campus Browsing's inclusive technology is open to the user's choice of web browser, while enabling secure web use and protecting a university's staff and students. All major and minor web browsers used in European higher education institutions are integrated with Safe Campus Browsing. Safe Campus Browsing is an exclusive application for IT managers and IT security managers at European universities.

Supported web browsers and devices

Web browser blacklist services provide one or more databases, called blacklists, of known phishing, malware and fraud websites. The web browsers locally check the URL of the visited website before navigating to the website. Safe Campus Browsing supports the following web browsers with their corresponding blacklist services:

Firefox (Phishing Protection)
Studo Browser (Studo Safe Browsing)
Edge (SmartScreen)
Chrome (Google Safe Browsing)
Safari (Fraudulent Website Warning)
Samsung Internet (Protected Browsing)
Internet Explorer (SmartScreen)
Other web browsers that use one or more of the blacklist services listed above

All of the blacklist services listed above display warnings to users when they attempt to navigate to malicious websites. The warnings are displayed in the listed web browsers on the desktop operating systems Windows, macOS and Linux and on the mobile operating systems Android and iOS. The simple and efficient forwarding of a URL to be blocked to the blacklist services of the most widely used web browsers is a major advantage of using Safe Campus Browsing.

Studo Safe Browsing

The blacklist service in the Studo Browser app on Android and iOS combines two different blacklist services:

Firstly, Studo Browser uses the same blacklist technology as Firefox for Android and iOS. In addition, the Studo Browser uses the blacklist service provided by the mobile operating system if not deactivated.

To be able to react immediately to threats to universities, Studo's Safe Campus Browsing adds a second layer of protection: a Safe Campus Browsing report from authenticated university representatives leads to the immediate blocking of the reported website in the Studo Browser. Whenever a website is accessed, the Studo Browser compares the URL with a blocking list located locally on the user's terminal and, in the event of a hit, displays an unavoidable security warning to the Studo Browser user. This second layer of protection is independent of operating system providers. Safe Campus Browsing was introduced because the blacklist providers sometimes reacted too late to targeted phishing attacks against universities.

Exemplary warning in the Studo App

Reporting procedure

To protect staff and students of a university from phishing, malware and fraud attacks, the URL of a malicious website can be reported to the appropriate blacklist service. There are two types of reporting and verification systems:

Safe Campus Browsing: Based on the trust of the person reporting the problem, the reported site is automatically added to the blacklist (e.g. Studo Safe Browsing if the reporting person is a university IT or security officer). If reported by an authenticated account, the reported page is immediately added to the blocked list in the browser clients.
Other providers: The decision whether a reported URL is classified as phishing, malware or fraud is made by the providers of the blacklist services (e.g. Google or Microsoft). IT or security officers at universities can apply for the attacking website to be blocked. The processing of this request and the decision to block can take up to 72 hours for Google, Microsoft does not give an estimated review time.

Safe Campus Browsing's one-click reporting system allows you to focus on important tasks during stressful times, while ensuring that a malicious website that is trying to harm your users is reported to all listed web browser blacklist services.

Safe Campus Browsing combines both checking systems: a website reported in Safe Campus Browsing is immediately blocked in Studo Browser, which is heavily used by students. In addition, the reported website is automatically forwarded to all the blacklist services mentioned above.

As for IT officers of universities, we are happy to make this service available to you. Once you have registered, Safe Campus Browsing will be activated at your university. If you have any questions about Safe Campus Browsing, please contact us via email.