Data Breaches Continue – Affecting U.S. Education Sectors

According to a study by Ponemon Institute, the average cost of a data breach in U.S. education sectors is $245 per compromised record, which is more than the $200 per education record reported worldwide. The data also shows that it takes education organizations an average of 221 days to recognize a breach, compared to the 155 days it takes for such recognition in the financial sector. The average number of records exposed was 28,512. The major component of that expense--about $1.51 million--is related to the business lost because of the breach: turnover of customers or "churn," increased customer acquisition cost, "reputation losses" and "diminished goodwill."   While the average cost for each lost or stolen record containing sensitive and confidential information has significantly decreased from $158 in 2016 to $141, companies are having larger breaches according to this year’s study. The average size of the data breaches in this research increased 1.8 percent to more than 24,000 records.

Ponemon Institute (2017). 2017 Cost of data breach study – Global overview. Traverse City, MI: Ponemon Institute. https://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?htmlfid=SEL03130WWEN&

Education Employees and Cyber Security

Education employees may be putting student data at risk, according to a MediaPro survey that posed hypothetical situations to educators about security and privacy. Among all the respondents, over half were classified as “risks” or “novices”, meaning their actions could lead to a potentially serious cyber incident or data breach. Meanwhile, only a third of respondents were classified as “heroes”, meaning they had strong knowledge of security and privacy best practices and are likely well-prepared to deal with many cyber threats. Implications from this study shed light on the important of informing education employees about a comprehensive approach to enhancing cyber security and privacy awareness, in order to better protect important student data.
 

Schwartz, J. (2017). Infographic: State of privacy and security awareness in education. Bothell, WA: MediaPro. https://www.mediapro.com/blog/infographic-state-of-privacy-security-awareness-education/