Universities around the world are facing ever increasing cybersecurity risks, particularly in the post-pandemic world – and Stellenbosch University is not immune to these threats. Even before Covid-19 struck, higher education institutions were already gathering vast amounts of data from students and staff – and now, with more hybrid and remote offerings, requiring even more information, the risks of cybersecurity have become massive.
The risks for these data rich institutions are wide ranging and include ransomware attacks, business email compromises, data and privacy breaches, as well as adversary-in-the-middle attacks, said Brian Mhembere, the Cybersecurity and Technology Risk Specialist in the ICT division at Stellenbosch University.
Brian, who has a background in IT in the banking, mining, health and financial services sectors, has seen and heard it all when it comes to cybercrimes. With his finger on the pulse of global cyber trends, and with first-hand experience of the havoc that cyber fraud can create, he has, in the past, been asked to share his expertise in interviews on television and on radio. He was even interviewed on the 8pm news on ETV ahead of Black Friday, where he warned South Africans of all that can go wrong when shopping online.
Now, as a key cyber “sleuth” at Stellenbosch University, he’s determined to ensure that the valuable student and research data stay safe.
“There have been a lot of data breaches in higher education institutions mainly through phishing attacks – attacks aimed at compromising personal identifiable data or to reveal personal sensitive information like credit card numbers, bank information or passwords,” he said in an interview.
Brian explained that ransomware attacks take place when a cybercriminal threatens to use technology to either publish or permanently block a victim’s personal data unless a ransom is paid. A data breach is a security violation, in which sensitive, protected or confidential data is copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen or used by an individual unauthorized to do so.
An adversary-in-the-middle attack is when an adversary intercepts communication channels between two components, with the aim of either altering the message or data, or compromising the integrity of the data a person is trying to transmit, with the result that the message reaches the intended recipient with altered information or configuration.
Brian was responsible for the recent cybersecurity maturity assessment and report on cybersecurity at the campus. The analysis was done using the ISO27001 standard and the National Information Security Technology (NIST) cyber-security framework, which uses a Capability Model Maturity (CMM) tool to analyse where the weaknesses lie in the whole IT environment. The CMM tool guides the analysis of the entire IT environment with controls mapping and scoring exposing gaps, in accordance with the ISO/IEC27001 standards.
“The report did not find anything out of trend with most universities around the world,” Brian said. “Our university falls in line with the current state of cybersecurity maturity of most other South African universities. There is still some work to be done to improve the cybersecurity of all these institutions. Our maturity is very low compared to universities in the UK and America, but better than that in some other countries in Africa.”
He said the audit was conducted during April and May 2022 and the report has not yet been published or made public.
“Even if we knew the findings, we would not make them public, because anyone who reads this article would know what our weaknesses are,” he said. “Even if SU had ever had an attack, we would not speak about it in the public domain. There have been attempts but we are able to monitor and protect most attacks.”
Brian said the issue of cybersecurity at the university keeps him on his toes, but this is nothing new. “When I was working as head of IT in one of the major private hospital groups, we had an incident with ransomware called Wanacry. One of our managers’ PC was encrypted by the hackers as she clicked on an attachment sent by email which contained some malicious code. Luckily, my office was right next to hers. I was able to run through and I saw her computer countdown times which said they were encrypting all her data on the computer unless she sent an amount in Bitcoin.
“We managed to quickly isolate her workstation and to disconnect it from the Internet, but it was too late to avoid the encryption on that workstation. However, we managed to prevent it from propagating through the network. We lost all the data on her machine, but because we had a good business continuity plan, we restored the data on her machine from our backups.”
In a humble deflection of his own vital role, Brian said: “This colleague saved the day. She followed all the awareness products we were pushing which is a major thing, as users are first and last in the line of defence. I have always placed a huge emphasis on user awareness and on campaigns to create what we call the the human firewall against cyber fraud.”
Brian, who grew up in Harare, Zimbabwe, has always been intrigued with information systems. He completed a Bachelor of Science, Honours degree in Information Systems, Diplomas in Telecoms Engineering, and Networking whilst working in various sectors. He is a Certified Information Security Manager from Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) and has since completed a range of other cybersecurity certifications and, in 2018, completed a Masters in Information Systems from the University of Cape Town.
“This is really very interesting work, as well as being very important,” he said. “In the age of digital transformation, everything is moving online and onto the cloud. It’s exciting to be part of this huge transformation and to educate users on best practices.
“Of course it keeps me up at night,” he said, of his role at Stellenbosch University. “But thankfully, our current chief director of IT has prioritised cybersecurity at the campus. We both recognise how important it has become in today’s world, especially for universities relying on remote working which was necessitated by the pandemic.”
He said the IT division is assessing the findings of the university’s audit into cybersecurity and is now working on implementing the recommendations from the report so as to strengthen their security and control in the digital sphere.
Brian said he tries to keep up to speed on cybercrimes, locally and internationally. “Recently, Uber was hacked. There were data breaches, and the matter is still under investigation. Each incident teaches us lessons. We learn how they were compromised, what their vulnerabilities were – and we compare this with ourselves. We ask ourselves, ‘if this happened to us would we be able to defend ourselves?”
He also cited numerous recent articles on the subject of cybersecurity, particularly in higher education. Part of his job, he said, is to keep up to speed on all developments in cyber fraud, which involves reading research, articles and journals on the subject. During the interview, he gave figures and case studies from various studies, including the Bank of America, Checkpoint, Sophos and Verizon.
“For example, the IT security company, Sophos recently published its report, The State of Ransomware in Education 2022 in which they gave insights into the ‘ever more challenging attack environment’ in which the education sector finds itself,” he said.
“Key findings are that ransomware attacks on education have increased – 64 percent in higher education were hit in 2021. Education is the sector least able to stop data being encrypted in an attack – higher education reported the highest data encryption rate of all sectors at 74%.
“The study also found that … education has below average cyber insurance coverage rates – only 78% of education organisations have cyber insurance coverage against ransomware compared with the global average of 83%. Many education organisations are choosing to reduce the financial risk associated with such attacks by taking cyber insurance.”
Cybersecurity should be a priority project for SU, Brian said. “So much could go wrong when a university is targeted. For example, when data breaches happen with student admissions and other personal data, a university can be fined by the regulator in terms of the POPI act. If our systems are compromised, the university could be forced to pay a breach fine of up to R10 million – or ten years in jail.
“We need to be always searching for the gaps. Hackers work 24/7 and always come up with new ways to compromise and breach systems for corporate espionage, financial gain, or national security espionage. We have to keep abreast with what’s happening in the world as it filters back to us.
“I’m so glad that SU’s senior management has bought into the importance of cybersecurity. To have an organisation with a chief director of IT who gives her full support – from budgetary support to moral support – on the importance of cybersecurity is hugely valuable.”
Image credit: Thomaguery; Getty
