DEV Community: Jolene Rutheford

The Importance of Data Backup for Educational Institutions

Jolene Rutheford — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 20:53:33 +0000

Modern educational institutions operate in a digitally-driven environment. As we know, the extensive use of digital technologies is associated not only with new opportunities but also with risks and challenges.
Unfortunately, educational institutions, more than other organizations, are threatened by cyberattacks. This article will explain why it’s so and why effective data backup is crucially important.

Are cyberattacks a real thing?

Every month, cyber hackers choose a new victim among educational institutions. Thousands of schools, colleges, and universities worldwide have already suffered from cyber and ransomware attacks.
Let’s consider a few cases that prove that cyberattacks are a real threat to educational institutions.
Case #1
South and City College Birmingham, UK, experienced a cyberattack on March 13, 2020. The college administration called the incident a “major ransomware attack” – hackers encrypted computer systems and said they would only release them if a ransom is paid. The college was forced to close all its campuses to students for a week.
Mike Hopkins, principal of South & City College Birmingham, tweeted about the ransomware attack.
Case #2
The University of California got attacked by the cyber gang NetWalker in summer 2020. University officials transferred 116.4 bitcoins – the equivalent of US$1.14 million – and received the key to decrypt university files in return.
Case #3
The Peel District School Board (PDSB) serves about 155,000 at more than 257 Canadian schools. It was attacked by cybercriminals in January 2020. Hackers encrypted PDSB files and systems.
Case #4
The Harris Federation, which runs 50 primary and secondary academies in and around London, experienced a severe cyberattack that affected 40,000 pupils. The cyber incident happened at the end of March 2020. The educational institution was forced to temporarily disable email to fix the problem.
Case #5
In summer 2019, cybercriminals attacked Monroe College, a for-profit institution in New York City. The cyberattack disabled the college’s website, learning management system, and email. Hackers demanded payment of around $2 million in Bitcoin to restore access.
Monroe College tweeted about the cyberattack and apologized for the course disruption.

Why are educational institutions a cyberattack favorite?

Educational institutions suffer from cyberattacks more than other organizations. There are a few reasons that explain this phenomenon.

Easy access to a big database of PII

Cybercriminals attack colleges and universities because they are a goldmine for personally identifiable information (PII). Higher education institutions store not only the data of students but also the personal data of their alumni and employees. Hackers can steal sensitive data such as bank account information and social security numbers and further use it to apply for loans, credit cards and making fraudulent insurance claims.

Educational institutions are “wealthy enough”

In most cases, hackers have a strong financial motivation – they attack organizations to get a ransom. Naturally, they choose organizations that can afford to pay a ransom. As a rule, well-established educational institutions play the roles of perfect victims – they have a high steady income, yet they are less prepared for attacks than for-profit organizations.

A high number of users and devices

Students and employees use not only college-owned computers but also their personal phones, tablets, and laptops. Naturally, the more devices are connected to one network, the more challenging it is to keep this network safe and secured. If one student clicks on a phishing link, it may affect the entire college system.

Young people are easy targets

Melissa Mauro, who works at the best online writing service, says: “High schoolers and college students know little or nothing about cybersecurity. They are more likely than other users to click on phishing links, visit suspicious websites, and complete other actions that can ease the work of the hackers.”

Multiple ways to enter the system

Another problem is that educational institutions provide users with easy access to numerous apps and databases. It means cybercriminals have more opportunities to enter the system.

Why it’s important to use educational backup services?

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, many schools have to cut expenses to stay afloat. Pretty often, educational institutions choose to cut costs associated with cybersecurity. And that’s a problem. In today’s digital world, cybersecurity is more important than ever.
Here are five reasons why the use of reliable educational backup services must be a priority for every organization.

Financial risk prevention

Let’s talk about the educational institutions that don’t back up important data. How can they deal with a cyberattack if it happens? They have no other option but to pay the ransom.
If they don’t transfer money to hackers’ accounts, they will lose access to databases that include information about their students, professors, course, finances, and research. The system will fail, and educators will not be able to fix the problem. The work of the entire educational institution will be paralyzed.
The amount of ransom can be any amount from $10,000 to $2,000,000 – that’s a huge financial loss for colleges and universities of any level. Educational institutions must protect themselves from paying a ransom – they should back up all essential data in advance. In such a case, even if attackers threaten to delete the data, IT specialists will be able to retrieve data from backup files. There will be no need to pay a ransom.

Severe system disruption

Hackers are real criminals. They do not always keep their promises. Even if the college agrees to pay a ransom, there is no guarantee that hackers will provide the key to decrypt files. Some hackers take both: money and files - they leave little chance for the college system to survive.
The use of educational backup service is a must for every college, school, and university. If an educational institution loses access to the academic performance database as well as course materials and research papers, that will lead to the collapse of the system.

Protection of reputation

Modern people do care about cybersecurity, and they want their personal data to be protected. One recent study shows that 87% of consumers are willing to choose another service provider (choose another educational institution) if, or when, a data breach occurs.
In other words, if a college experiences a cyberattack – that will negatively affect its reputation. News about the cybersecurity incident will scare prospective students away. Consequently, the college will lose popularity and revenue.

Protection of intellectual property

Colleges and universities invest lots of money in researches and longitudinal studies. They conduct long-term experiments to make new findings, register patents, and design innovative formulas.
As a rule, all research data is stored in one system. If the system gets disrupted, there will be a risk that an educational institution will lose its valuable developments. It’s necessary to back up data to ensure that research and development investments will not be lost or wasted.

Compliance with GDPR

The European Parliament adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in April 2016. Its primary purpose is to bring data protection rules up-to-date with contemporary concerns around personal information use. GDPR requirements apply to all data processed by organizations, including the data used and stored by educational institutions.
The GDPR set a maximum fine of €20 million or 4% of annual global turnover – whichever is greater – for infringements. Educational institutions will have to deal with huge penalties in case of a data breach.

How can educational institutions manage backups?

Now let’s talk about the things educational institutions should consider choosing the right data backup strategy.

Data classification

Schools store a wide range of files. Not all of those files are equally important.
All collected data (files) fall into three categories of “importance”:
Level I. Sensitive and private data: students’ social security numbers, employees’ bank account information, etc.
Level II. Data that only staff and students use: learning materials, e-receipts, dissertations, research papers, etc.
Level III. Publicly available information: web content, blog posts, social media content.
Organizations must back up Level I data in the first place and then decide how to secure Level II and Level III data. Separation of levels is needed for boosting cybersecurity efforts.
This cybersecurity strategy is used by the vast majority of educational platforms. For instance, best term paper writing service divide data by levels – they back up research paper databases separately from customer credit card data. It allows edtech companies to establish the highest security standards.

Cloud storage and backup solutions

Cloud storage is a great alternative to on-premise data storage. It saves money and space while also significantly enhances security. In case of a cyberattack incident, an educational institution can retrieve backed-up files and restore the system.
Just keep in mind that not all cloud storage providers comply with GDPR. Choose a provider mindfully to make sure that your educational institution will not get a penalty.

Are cyberattacks the only reason to back up files?

Cyberattack is one of the main, but not the only problem that educational institutions may face. Here are a few cases in which backup files may come in handy:
A professor has accidentally deleted a grade book file while trying to import grades from Google Classroom.
A syncing glitch resulted in the loss of course materials.
A student has accidentally deleted his comments on a discussion board on Blackboard.
Students accidentally deleted their assignments created through slides that were linked to Google Classroom.
Sensitive data has become corrupted due to failed attempt to migrate data to a new device.

Wrapping up

In an ever-changing, technology-driven world, data backup is not an option, it’s a necessity.
Every educational institution, regardless of its location and financial opportunities, needs to invest in effective data backup solutions. It’s the only right way to secure sensitive data and prevent cyber incidents, or at least minimize their negative effect.

5 Tips to Digitally Transform Your Business Communications to Boost Marketing Success

Jolene Rutheford — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 05:30:36 +0000

Communication plays a pivotal role in shaping a company’s approach to marketing, sales, customer support, and many other mission-critical processes. Whether you’re trying to find new influencers for your business or if you’re trying to boost word of mouth through support, every process designed to boost brand engagement, awareness, and get people to your doorstep starts with effective communication.
In the modern business world, it is imperative to embrace digital transformation in order to take your internal and external communication to the next level. This is also one of the best ways to take your marketing forward as well. So, let’s take a look at how you can digitally transform your communications to ensure the success of your marketing and other departments.
Communicating on marketing projects with PM software
Let’s start with the less obvious tip: the importance of PM software in your communication hierarchy. Seeing as how communication is pivotal for efficient collaboration, it’s important to have a unified communications system in your company. However, you also need a system that will facilitate cross-department collaboration, especially if you’re running on a remote work business model.
Efficient collaboration stems from good communication, but also a comprehensive PM tool that will give your employees all the features they need to work together in the online world. Managing marketing for startups and sales projects can be difficult otherwise, and it’s important that this tool facilitates collaboration between marketing and sales. After all, one cannot achieve its full potential without the other.
Capitalizing on brand mentions and relevant insights
Modern marketing is fueled by meaningful market data and detailed insights. If you’re organizing your strategy on a whim or if you’re just trusting the instincts of your marketers, you’re never going to surpass your competitors. This is why you need to take a data-oriented approach to marketing and communication in your business.
It’s important to choose the digital tools that allow you to listen to the pulse of the online world to see how people are perceiving your brand. This tool should easily integrate your favorite software like Slack, and it should provide you with detailed insights that will boost reputation management and business intelligence, among other things. Naturally, this will greatly influence your external communication strategy and how you approach brand-consumer communication across all departments.
Unifying all communications under a single tool
Of course, to fully digitize your communications, you need a unified system that operates on the cloud and allows you to integrate all manners of remote communications. This includes phone, email, video, texting, and any type of audio-visual communication in general. Typically, the way you do this is by implementing a VoIP (voice over internet protocol) system into your business.
There are many different VoIP providers and plans out there, and some of the top VoIP providers of 2020 will give you access to low-cost phone calls but also various digital perks to facilitate communication and collaboration. Make sure to look for providers that offer mobile optimization for those employees on the go, call analytics to fuel business intelligence, and AI-driven systems to streamline communication with customers.
Adopting an omni-channel communication strategy
To make your transition to digitized communication as successful and impactful as possible, you need to take a comprehensive approach to internal and external communication. Building an omni-channel communication strategy will allow you to capitalize on all possible customer touchpoints and build a more efficient work environment. It will also ensure your support staff is able to catch and act on all negative reviews online quickly by complementing omni-channel communications with your reputation management and online listening tool.
Ensuring stellar data security for marketing and sales success
In the increasingly dangerous online world, it is imperative that you take cybersecurity seriously. Keep in mind that marketing and sales departments handle a variety of sensitive data on a daily basis. You cannot afford a single data breach if you want to safeguard the reputation of your brand. This is why cybersecurity is so important in marketing and sales, so make sure to implement a secure web gateway, combine software and hardware firewalls, and enable end-to-end encryption for all internal communication.
Wrapping up
Digital transformation is one of the essential pillars of success in the modern business world. If you want to take your marketing, sales, and other departments forward in 2021 and the years to come, make sure to use these tips to transform your business communications.