Between device loss or theft, idle malware introduced via smartphone update requests, rogue hotspots and poorly-coded apps, IT leaders in education need to start girding themselves for an onslaught of security threats related to the mobile devices carried by students and staff. According to Gartner, over the next year and through the end of 2015, more than three-quarters of mobile apps will fail "basic security tests."
The National Cyber League will offer colleges the opportunity to participate in games and labs to improve students' cybersecurity skills.
Washington, D.C.'s Howard University will be beta testing a new mobile app still in development that's intended to provide "social safety," on college campuses.
The Carnegie Mellon University recently received a $5.6 million grant through the CyberCorps Scholarship for Service, a federal program that provides scholarships to students who expect to become federal information assurance professionals.
The community at Arizona State University will be able to use a new mobile app that allows them to communicate with the campus police department.
With the advent of malicious software that can be purchased online and an underground infrastructure that can be used to set off targeted attacks, cyber security threats are becoming more "democratized," and therefore more likely to gain visibility beyond the walls of the data center. That can lead to more enlightened thinking among executive management about investing in security measures, said Research Director Lawrence Pingree during a Gartner security and risk management summit being held in Australia this week.
There are hackers, and then there are victors. Carnegie Mellon University's computer hacking team, the Plaid Parliament of Pwning, has for the second year running taken first place in a Capture the Flag competition at the DEF CON hacker convention.
A University of California Santa Barbara cryptologist has been awarded $499,000 by the National Science Foundation to pursue work related to secret key cryptography.
The National Science Foundation's Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace program has issued two multi-million dollar awards for multi-institutional projects in cybersecurity.
In preparation for a major event held at its campus, the University of British Columbia Vancouver opted into a new emergency operations and incident management system.
