Four in 10 of the top websites pose dangers to their visitors. According to cybersecurity vendor Menlo Security, out of the top 100,000 websites as ranked by Alexa, 42 percent are "risky." A risky website is any site where either the homepage or an associated background site is running vulnerable software; the site is known to distribute malware or launch attacks; or the site has already suffered a security breach in the past 12 months.
It's no longer optional for colleges and universities to report data breaches to the U.S. Department of Education — yet the agency has not clearly defined its expectations. Here's what institutions should be aware of.
In a recent study, 10 percent of simulated phishing e-mails sent to users in education institutions were successful, triggering the recipient to click on a fraudulent link. That's according to the 2018 State of the Phish report from Wombat Security Technologies, in which researchers measured the average click rates on phishing tests across various industries. Education had an average click rate of 10 percent; the industries that performed worst in the tests were telecommunications and retail, with 15 percent and 14 percent average click rates, respectively.
A new study by a security training company has found that even a few months of security awareness instruction can have a big impact on how well recipients respond to phishing attempts. In the education segment, specifically, KnowBe4 found that 27.16 percent of staff were "phishing-prone" — likely to open e-mails or click on files containing malware. After three months of training, the same people were 30 percent less likely to open such e-mail; and after a year, they were 88 percent less likely to do so.
Recently, researchers at security firm 4iQ reported that they'd found a database of 1.4 billion clear text credentials, an aggregate database twice as large as any other ever uncovered in the dark web. The password 123456 was found in the database 9.2 million times.
Creativity, entrepreneurship, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence at the Rochester Institute of Technology are getting a boost thanks to a $50 million alumni gift, the largest donation ever made to the university.
By the age of 16, most women in the United States, Europe and Israel have already decided not to pursue a career in cybersecurity, according to a new study from Kaspersky Lab.
For the third year running, information security is topping the list of IT issues in higher education. The topic took the No. 1 spot in Educause's "Top 10 IT Issues and Strategic Technologies for 2018," announced last week at the organization's annual conference in Philadelphia.
Deloitte and Educause have partnered on a joint report that aims to inform higher education institutions of their responsibilities regarding new federal data protection requirements with deadlines beginning Dec. 31 of this year.
Technology solutions provider CDW-G today released a cybersecurity survey that may indicate a communications gap between IT departments and students.
