Page 118 - Security Today, July/August 2021

Network Security
"There has been a dramatic rise in the amount of these applications over the past five years, however, as the rapid adoption of cashless transaction systems has enabled the student to accrue expenses for everything from food, to laundry, to supplies and even tuition."
Let’s face it - the technology environment of a typical campus brings with it a unique set of situations and challenges that even the most seasoned technology manager may not fully appreciate. Matching that uniqueness is the fact that most educational facilities run on limited budgets with a lean amount of staff, where each wears various hats throughout the department.
What this all means - besides possible sleepless nights - is that in order to be truly secure, one must be focused on getting their secu- rity posture just right, being as prepared as possible for every eventu- ality and putting faith in that preparation if disaster strikes.
The Campus Situation is Unique
As they say, situations may vary, but on a typical campus the applica- tion stack chosen by the university is narrower than one would find at an enterprise, but the potential scope of applications and resulting traffic includes all manner of software from enterprise to consumer.
There are different types of productivity applications in use by differ- ent groups; sometimes different departments use their own preferred type of applications, and it’s impossible to fully account for everything that a student may bring into the environment. There is robust use of cloud tools like Google Suite and Microsoft Office 365 - and despite any school-wide “preferences,” applications in use are never 100% standard.
At most modern educational institutions, a majority of the applica- tions in use today are web-deployed. Traditionally there have been some point-of-sale applications at bookstores, tuition payment appli- cations and locations where personal employee data is stored, all which need to be protected from breaches or attacks. There has been
26 campuslifesecurity.com | JULY/AUGUST 2021