[AISWorld] [CfP] Organizational Cybersecurity Journal – Cybersecurity in the Higher Education Sector: Challenges, Solutions and Best Practices

[Raymond Choo]

Cybersecurity in the Higher Education Sector: Challenges, Solutions and
Best Practices
https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/calls-for-papers/cybersecurity-higher-education-sector-challenges-solutions-and-best-practices



While malicious cyber activities continue to occur frequently across all
types of businesses and organizations, universities have also been affected
by a fair share of such incidents. These episodes may relate directly to
the university business, such as the recent breach of exam software and
student records in Australia (see this article on SBS News, August 2020).
They may also extend to external private or public organizations, such as
the potential compromise to Japan’s maritime strategy via information on
university servers (see this article on Nikkei Asia, Sep 2018). This
unwelcome and even dangerous situation indicates that much work is still
needed to understand and develop safe and effective cybersecurity practices
within the university sector.

Cybersecurity is particularly important in higher education institutions.
The environment of these institutions is necessarily fairly “free and open”
in order to encourage learning and experimentation. Universities hold
precious data, including emails, personal information, sensitive research
data (e.g., COVID-19 vaccination) and intellectual properties. The majority
of the users of university systems are students, who usually possess and
use their own computing devices to access university systems. In
additional, universities often host visitors. These users may have
different levels of knowledge or understanding about cybersecurity, thereby
making university systems vulnerable. As such, cybercriminals have
identified universities as soft targets, with cyberattacks against the
university sector on the rise over the past few years. Worse, as
universities are often interconnected to other universities, private or
public organizations, a breach in any one of these nodes could have
devastating chain-effects on the other nodes.

In short, universities are being exposed to three key areas of
cybersecurity concerns: loss of confidential data, loss of data integrity,
and loss of access or availability. The compromise of any of these three
components can result in losses of money, time, or reputation. The issues
of cybersecurity are no longer confined only to IT personnel and engineers.
The problem is not just within the domain of private firms and public
organizations. Higher education institutions are increasingly affected by
the issues that plagued other organizations.

In response to these challenges, the *Special Issue on* *Cybersecurity in
the Higher Education Sector: Challenges, Solutions and Best Practices* seeks
contributions from researchers across a wide range of topics of critical
concerns and interests, *specifically within the higher education domain*.
These topics, both empirical or theoretical, include but are not limited to
the following.

· Given the necessary openness of higher educational institutions, what
defensive tools or mechanisms are effective against cybersecurity threats?

· What are the trade-offs between security, costs, and usability?

· What forms of cyber hygiene training for faculty, staff, students, and
visitors may improve cybersecurity?

· How effective are applications of technologies or techniques (digital
forensics, artificial Intelligence, game theory, etc.) for cybercrime
detection/prevention in higher educational institutions?

· What are the issues related to the measurements and management of
incident response, investigation and evidence handling?

· What roles do countering espionage and foreign forces play in
cybersecurity within higher educational institutions?

· How can higher educational institutions improve their cyber resilience?

*Timeline*

   - November 1, 2022 - Submission system opens for research paper
   - March 30, 2023 - Submission deadline for research papers
   - June 30, 2023 - first review round completed
   - September 30, 2023 - revised manuscripts due
   - December 20, 2023 - Final decision sent to authors
   - January 25, 2024 - Final manuscript submitted
   - May 2024 - Publication of Special Issue