Will Cyber Attacks Hit Higher Ed Next?

With the recent attacks on a number of high tech companies like Google and Adobe, can we expect similar cyber attacks soon against higher education institutions?

I have to believe leading research institutions are or have been targeted for their research and intellectual property assets. I am speaking on this topic next week at the Treasury Institute's Symposium. My talk ("A Senior Management Perspective on Cyber Security") was originally aimed at the usual trojans and malware, but the news these past weeks have me updating my message.

What has me particularly concerned is an article in CSO Online entitled Botnets: The Democratization of Espionage by Brian Krebs. Read it. While the attacks on Google et al were not by botnet, the scope of botnets can give hackers - even the ones that are just plain old criminals and not nation states - the tools to compromise your systems and data.

Your networks are being scanned continuously by the bad guys looking for a way in. The threat is not going away. It can only get worse.