Cyber Threats Impacting Higher Education Institutions

Higher education institutions have been constant targets by threat actors for several years with no reprieve. The reasons and threat objectives vary from espionage and exfiltration of intellectual property and research and targeting student and faculty personal identifiable information (PII) to fraud and financially motivated attacks (ransomware). To protect schools and universities of all sizes, including students, staff, and faculty, Proofpoint Threat Research investigates billions of emails every day, drawing on intelligence from multiple data sources (network and cloud). We are at the forefront of the battle on the threat landscape. We track several different threats targeting global higher education institutions, including nation-state aligned Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups, crimeware actors and ransomware affiliates, and fraud rings. Attacks start with something we use every day in our personal and professional lives: email. By leveraging our research in this presentation, you will be able to see the evolution of the landscape to include new and updated tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and emerging actors; how they abuse trusted technology, and relationships against students and staff; and how malicious email campaigns can lead to ransomware. We will conclude with what you can do to become involved in the community and protect the learning environment.