Board of Regents new approach to protecting against cyber attacks
By Ryan Martin |
Posted: Tue 8:31 PM, Jan 15, 2019
South Dakota Universities face more than 20 million cyber attacks each day.
"Threats that are happening against campus can come from areas such as our research or our academic spaces, or even some of our staff areas, and those threats are increasing, not only in numbers but in complexity," said Ryan Knutson, Assistant Vice President of Technology at SDSU.
Increasing cyber security across South Dakota campuses is the key to the new security operations center, which is now centrally located on the South Dakota State University campus.
"So we officially launched in July of this last summer," Knutson said.
The South Dakota Board of Regents, along with universities across the state determined that a new approach to protecting their students and staff must be taken.
"Each of the Universities have went together and purchased the similar security products. Those security products are stationed at each of the Universities as well as each of the Board of Regents office," said Knutson.
People involved in the project say this should better protect everyone on campus.
"I'm looking forward to us playing better defense on behalf of our students, faculty and staff across all of the Universities," said Mavhu Chidaushe, Communications Security Analyst.
The security staff in the new office have to keep their eyes and ears open to make sure they share the message of any possible attacks.
"Making sure we get communication out to the other schools in a coordinated manner," Chidaushe said.
Ryan Knutson and the rest of the security staff at SDSU know they have to continue working to make sure the security of all the schools remain top priority.
"As they scale up, we have to scale up as well, and so by doing that across all of the Universities we're able to see threats that might be hopping from one institution to the next," Knutson said.
Officials from the Regents Information Systems say this center was identified as more effective than approaches that have been taken in the past.
DSU helping to lead charge in cyber security
Breach at Hy-Vee linked to sale of millions of stolen credit, debit cards
Facebook & Instagram users experiencing problems worldwide
The number of robocalls is on the rise across the nation