Cybersecurity Resources for Smaller Institutions: Challenges, Compromises, and Collaborations

As large universities are challenged by the increasing demand for resources to protect information assets in the face of an ever-increasing pace and sophistication of cybersecurity threats, smaller institutions—often under-served due to lack of financial and staff resources—are faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem. They face the same challenges, with fewer resources, and no benefits of scale. For cybersecurity researchers at these schools, the outlook can be even bleaker. Traditionally, it is only larger institutions that have the level of infrastructure and staff to provide data, secure access to that data, or expertise and staff bandwidth to assist those researchers in understanding the operational context of the data. Such an arrangement can perpetuate inequities both in the protection of institutional information technology assets and the availability of cybersecurity data to conduct research. This session will discuss the challenges of providing cybersecurity and conducting cybersecurity research at smaller institutions, raise awareness of compromises made to meet those challenges, and discuss potential collaborations to address factors that contribute to inequities.