Higher education institutions’ data have long been under attack, but recently, attacks seem to be happening more often. One of the most recent university data breaches hit Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) exposing data of up to 1.3 million individuals.
According to the Georgia Tech News Center, the April 2019 breach exposed information like students’ names, dates of birth, and email addresses. These were not just current records–the hackers stole many years’ worth of data. This breach is only one example of the myriad universities that have experienced breaches exposing sensitive and personally-identifiable information (PII) data.
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Universities and their vendors are prime targets for hackers because they are data-rich environments. They hold everything from medical records to social security numbers, with multiple access points, and they maintain a culture of collaboration with the open sharing of information.