CyberPeace Report Highlights Weak Digital Defenses in Indian Education Sector

Quick Summary

• Indian educational institutions face escalating cyber threats due to inadequate cybersecurity measures and awareness, states a CyberPeace Foundation report.
• The report titled “Exploring cyber Threats and Digital Risks to Indian Educational Institutions” was released alongside the launch of a “Cyber First Responder” initiative focused on resilience and AI safety, supported by Google.org.
• Key cyber risks identified include phishing, ransomware/malware attacks, DDoS attacks, data theft, deepfakes, snooping/sniffing activities with potential national security implications.
• Simulated studies detected 217,886 attack events globally between July 2023-April 2024 originated from IP addresses across several countries (e.g., USA, China, Russia). Attribution remains complex due to proxy technologies masking origins.
• vulnerabilities include weak technical expertise in schools/universities; outdated hardware/software; low budgets for cybersecurity; widespread student/staff use of personal devices; cases of sensitive student data exposure in past incidents noted (i.e., Byju’s breaches).
• CERT-In flagged growing attempts targeting students-cases included social engineering tactics like Pakistani operatives phishing for otps via WhatsApp around border districts prone infiltration risks reported earlier from regions July even probing toppled selling underage children pastextractedetc! Cases

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