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A Systematic Review of Cybersecurity Risks in Higher Education

Author

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  • Joachim Bjørge Ulven

    (Deptment of Information Security and Communication Technology, Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, NTNU—Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Teknologivegen 22, 2815 Gjøvik, Norway
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Gaute Wangen

    (Deptment of Information Security and Communication Technology, Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, NTNU—Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Teknologivegen 22, 2815 Gjøvik, Norway
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

Abstract

The demands for information security in higher education will continue to increase. Serious data breaches have occurred already and are likely to happen again without proper risk management. This paper applies the Comprehensive Literature Review (CLR) Model to synthesize research within cybersecurity risk by reviewing existing literature of known assets, threat events, threat actors, and vulnerabilities in higher education. The review included published studies from the last twelve years and aims to expand our understanding of cybersecurity’s critical risk areas. The primary finding was that empirical research on cybersecurity risks in higher education is scarce, and there are large gaps in the literature. Despite this issue, our analysis found a high level of agreement regarding cybersecurity issues among the reviewed sources. This paper synthesizes an overview of mission-critical assets, everyday threat events, proposes a generic threat model, and summarizes common cybersecurity vulnerabilities. This report concludes nine strategic cyber risks with descriptions of frequencies from the compiled dataset and consequence descriptions. The results will serve as input for security practitioners in higher education, and the research contains multiple paths for future work. It will serve as a starting point for security researchers in the sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Joachim Bjørge Ulven & Gaute Wangen, 2021. "A Systematic Review of Cybersecurity Risks in Higher Education," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-40, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:13:y:2021:i:2:p:39-:d:491932
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva & Aceil Al-Khatib & Panagiotis Tsigaris, 2020. "Spam emails in academia: issues and costs," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(2), pages 1171-1188, February.
    2. Samaher Al-Janabi & Ibrahim Al-Shourbaji, 2016. "A Study of Cyber Security Awareness in Educational Environment in the Middle East," Journal of Information & Knowledge Management (JIKM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 15(01), pages 1-30, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Frank Cremer & Barry Sheehan & Michael Fortmann & Arash N. Kia & Martin Mullins & Finbarr Murphy & Stefan Materne, 2022. "Cyber risk and cybersecurity: a systematic review of data availability," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 47(3), pages 698-736, July.
    2. Jin Li & Wei Xiao & Chong Zhang, 2023. "Data security crisis in universities: identification of key factors affecting data breach incidents," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-18, December.

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