You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know: A Lens Into Cyber Threat Exposure Among Educational Institutions

In 2024, the Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) provider ecosystem produced  over 1.2 trillion CTI datapoints that described threat actors, their tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs), and related indications of compromise (IOCs) or attack (IOAs). The projection for 2025 is over 2 trillion. This global CTI provides an incredible view into the breadth of threat vectors of attackers as well as threat exposures of defending organizations. Our ongoing research is one of the most expansive and comprehensive analyses of accessible global threat intelligence data from over 50 providers spanning over 2 years. We will share insights about the CTI ecosystem, including volume and rate of production of IOCs/IOAs, intersections between different providers, speed of attribution to vulnerability disclosure, and predictability of future attacks. We will then focus this CTI lens on the education sector to reveal sobering statistics of cyberthreat risk for institutions of higher learning. Our analysis will include a breakdown of CTI into 10 supercategories, from malware and phishing to defensive evasion and attempted 0-day execution, attributed to observed malicious activity originating from or conduiting through campus networks. What you know about what you don’t know can be a leap toward an improved, proactive cyber defense.