ITU’s Kranthi Lammatha is big on campus IT security
The virtual security on university campus’ is having to work harder and harder all the time these days. Universities are among the most at-risk environments for threats to IT security because they hold such a significant wealth of information always. When digital disruption hit the industry, the innovations introduced (like online learning and digital material sources, for example) led to an increased influx of new students. With these new students came the influx of more devices. No matter how secure a university’s IT security platform is, the sheer increase of student volume that has come in the wake of increasing technological advancement in the higher education industry has resulted in a heightened responsivity of students and devices cause inevitable cracks.
If left unchecked, these cracks can turn into full-scale breaks, and hacker activity will not only rise, but it will increase exponentially. Historically, this theory has proven time and again to be true. Hackers thrive in fast-paced, busy environments. When there is a higher number of devices all connecting, and vying, off a single network, there is more data to protect and that data becomes more difficult to protect. ITU’s CTO Kranthi Lammatha understands this issue in depth. Having worked in higher education IT security for over eleven years, Lammatha is one of the individuals that is working hardest to advocate for the importance of IT security and seamless communication.
In fact, he has built an entire career around improving the back-end of education, working with and securing the data outlets that students and faculty work with every day. Universities are threatened by cyberattacks from criminals who are seeking a thrill or hacking for a more malicious undertaking. Because universities are a wealth of data, they house all kinds of important personal information, from social security details and bank information, to student records and sensitive information. Hackers target these systems because there is such an abundance of information ready and waiting for them to take.
Lammatha understands the need for IT security on university campuses from multiple perspectives. Having worked in the university industry, having experience in IT and data mining, and having developed a system that makes interconnectivity on university domains easier and faster, Lammatha knows more than a little bit about IT security and its roots and reasons. His view is that, while technology is considered to be an efficiency enhancer, connecting humanity so seamlessly also comes with the inevitable risk factor of further potential for negative disruption (i.e. cyberattacks by hackers).
As Lammatha puts it, hackers often target universities and other higher education institutions when students are on campus. There are multiple reasons for this, but the underlying root cause is because, when digital activity is most prevalent on campus, the hackers have more doors and windows accessible to them. The reason why this is so important is obvious: the more ongoing activity, the more data is up for grabs. IT security on higher education campuses is so important because with so much valuable information swirling around the virtual stratosphere that is a university’s online network, there is too much to lose.