ANU Data Breach Analysis
The Australian National University Data Breach
The Vice-Chancellor of the Australian University noted with regret in late June 4th, 2019 that the institution had been a victim of data breach (Australian National University, 2019). The illegal activity that was noted in May is believed to have been perpetuated in the last quarter of 2018. The operators who illegally assessed the systems are said to have obtained information mainly on identity including personal contacts, student’s academic records as well as details on bank accounts. It was quite fortunate that information on health records, credit cards, compensation rates, and travel, which is deemed more sensitive was not affected (Australian National University, 2019). The Australian National University data breach is just one of the many data breaches on educational data breaches in Australia. There could be more data breaches on educational institutions that go unreported or unnoticed, especially in small and medium learning institutions. The data breach which affected 200,000 people is believed to have been perpetrated by China (Australian National University, 2019).Even though ANU has not yet pronounced the circumstances that led to the data breach, it is worth noting that vulnerability and information technology security played a vital role in the attack. The incident was not the first one in the University, which implies that it has been a target for quite some long (Australian National University, 2019). The institution’s vulnerability arises from the fact that it hosts a large number of people, including students from all over the world. The hackers are believed to be attracted by advanced research projects in most times (Martin, 2019). On the issue of IT security, ANU has not been able to install the necessary tools to prevent its population from data breaches. While the data hackers constantly upgrade their systems for their attacks, the institution has not been keeping its systems up-to-date to mitigate any threats.
References
Australian National University , 2019. Message from the Vice-Chancellor. [Online] Available at: https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/message-from-the-vicechancellor#overlay-context=user [Accessed 4 June 2019].
Martin, L., 2019. Australian National University Hit by Huge Data Breach. [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/04/australian–national-university-hit-by-huge-data-breach [Accessed 8 August 2019].