The COVID-19 pandemic has altered our way of life including how we conduct business and work. Several countries the world over, have instituted mandatory lockdown measures in order to curtail the spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus.
As a result of mandatory lockdown measures across the world, governments and business enterprises including the education sector, have adopted ICT-enabled work modes in order to continue with operations remotely.
At Makerere University, electronic learning and remote access to institutional digital resources have been adopted and enabled for both staff and students in order to continue with teaching and learning, conducting and disseminating research as well as performing administrative operations remotely (teleworking).
The increased adoption of ICT has presented an opportunity for hackers to compromise institutional resources especially in the education and research sectors. According to findings from checkpoint (Checkpoint software , n.d.) the education and research sectors were the top-target for hackers in 2021 with a 75% increase in cyber-attacks over 2020! While other sectors encountered a 50% increase in cyberattacks in the same year.
Limited investiment in security and cyber-defense mechanisms, is partly to blame for the high cyber-attack incidents at universities the world over. A cyber-attack on a university, can lead to catastrophic breaches on student and research data which can cripple operations at a university. Now that COVID-19 is here and online activity has skyrocketed at universities, the need to invest in cybersecurity measures cannot be delayed!
The end-user (in this case academic staff and students), is usually the weakest security link and thus an easier target for hackers. It is therefore, important that organisations hold regular cyber-security awareness drives for their users in order to ready them with skills to identify potential cyber-attacks as well as avoid online user behavior that increases risks of cyber-attacks.
At Makerere University, we have adopted and implemented single sign-on (SSO) as an entry-level gateway to the institutions electronic resources. In addition, the university has organised virtual cyber-security awareness drives for staff and students.
Some of the basic but critical security measures that end-users should adopt include;
- Do not access adult content websites. They are usually infested with malware!
- Avoid sharing personal details on unsecured online links.
- Do not open links or download content from unsecured online links.
- Do not open or download attachments from unsolicited emails.
- Installation of an up-to-date security solution/anti-virus.
- Regular updates of the operating system patches especially security related patches.
By Mr. Mugabi Samuel
The writter is a digital and cyber-security awareness enthuthiast as well as the Director of Information and Communication Technology at Makerere University.
