Higher education will see a record number of cyberattacks in 2026. Summer is the optimal time for a cybersecurity assessment; here’s how JANUS can help protect your campus before fall.
Most higher education institutions follow a predictable cycle. The academic year ends with commencement, empty campuses, and IT teams finally getting breathing room. This quiet period is also the most strategic time for higher education cybersecurity.
Institutions that use the summer to assess and strengthen security enter the fall much stronger than those that are left playing catch-up at the worst time.
The threat environment for universities has changed. In 2025, institutions faced approximately 4,356 weekly cyberattacks—an eye-watering 41% increase from the previous year. These are targeted campaigns by ransomware groups, nation-state actors, and data extortion operators who understand exactly what universities have and how their networks work.
The appeal is clear: student financial records, federally funded research, health data, and financial aid systems are a concentration of sensitive, regulated data. Security programs often fail to keep pace with institutional growth, and Ransomware-as-a-Service makes attacks accessible to more threat actors. Attackers now often steal data for extortion or exposure, rather than just locking systems.
Smaller institutions and community colleges face particular risk. Limited IT and security staff, legacy infrastructure, and constrained budgets create conditions that well-resourced threat actors are specifically designed to exploit.
Ransomware attacks in higher ed spiked 23% in early 2025, with average ransom demands near $556,000. The cost of operational disruption, offline systems during enrollment or research, often exceeds the ransom.
Over 85% of ransomware incidents start with compromised credentials. Higher ed relies on email and has large, rotating user groups, making it a target for credential harvesting. SMS-based multifactor authentication is no longer sufficient, and attackers are bypassing it with new techniques, including SIM-based attacks and token exploitation.
Data exfiltration targets research and student records. Nation-state actors and organized criminal groups increasingly target research data, particularly at institutions with active Department of Defense contracts, pharmaceutical partnerships, or advanced engineering programs. FERPA-protected student records and GLBA-covered financial aid data represent significant regulatory exposure when compromised.
A single breach at a university can trigger FERPA, GLBA, HIPAA, and even CMMC requirements. Each has different timelines, notifications, and penalties that may overlap.
Resilient institutions are not always the biggest or richest. Instead, they commit to a multi-layered, defense-in-depth approach combining technology, policy, and practice. These include:
Zero Trust Architecture: Rather than trusting any device or user simply because they are on the network, Zero Trust principles require continuous verification, thereby limiting lateral movement if an attacker gains initial access. For open-campus environments with thousands of endpoints, this architectural shift is one of the highest-impact controls available.
Phishing-resistant MFA: Hardware security keys and biometric passkeys have replaced SMS-based codes as the standard for protecting high-privilege accounts. Institutions that have not yet made this transition remain disproportionately exposed to credential theft.
Immutable data backups: Unalterable copies of critical institutional data, maintained offline or in air-gapped environments, eliminate the leverage that ransomware operators depend on. Recovery without payment becomes operationally viable.
Institutions must know their assets, endpoints, applications, networks, and the locations of sensitive data to protect it. You need visibility before any other control.
A tested, documented incident response plan separates a managed event from a crisis. Plans need to be regularly tested because plans that exist only on paper are bound to fail under pressure. AI sandboxes for research environments.
As faculty increasingly work with AI tools, institutions face a new exposure: sensitive research data processed through public AI platforms outside of institutional controls. Secure, provisioned AI environments reduce this risk while preserving research productivity.
Summer assessments make sense. IT staff are more available, and lower network traffic makes testing easier with less disruption. The fall semester is a hard deadline, remediation takes time, and summer is when you have it.
Security improvements require steps: assess, analyze gaps, prioritize, plan, and act. Starting in May or June means you can finish before fall. Waiting until August means you'll only document risks—not fix them.
JANUS Associates conducts independent cybersecurity assessments for universities, colleges, and research institutions, evaluated against NIST CSF 2.0, CIS Controls v8, or institution-specific frameworks. The engagement delivers a gap analysis, a prioritized remediation roadmap, a review of the incident response plan, and an executive risk report in language your president, board, and legal team can act on.
JANUS does not sell security software, hardware, or monitoring subscriptions. Every recommendation reflects your institution's actual risk profile, not a vendor's product catalog. The assessment is yours. The roadmap is yours. The decisions remain with your team.
Summer assessment availability is limited. To ensure your institution can address vulnerabilities before fall, schedule your cybersecurity assessment now. Secure your spot early to benefit from a comprehensive evaluation and an actionable roadmap.