Higher education institutions and K-12 schools are still reeling from the changes made during the pandemic, and the looming threat of a ransomware attack continues. Sixty-four percent of higher education institutions were hit by ransomware in the last year – a significant increase from 44 percent the previous year.

Institutions are attractive targets for bad actors, as they often lack a resilient IT infrastructure, operate with tight budgets and stretched IT teams, and struggle to secure outdated infrastructure with limited resources. Modern institutions run on data, making a meaningful data protection strategy essential.

Ensuring continuity of learning and research is a top priority for higher education institutions as any disruption threatens the student, educator, and researcher experience. They can benefit from solutions that prioritize data protection against changing ransomware threats – and investing in data-centric, flexible, and scalable solutions offers secure and reliable data protection.

The Importance of Data Protection

Data protection is a vital component of the contemporary data center that encompasses multiple platforms and technologies, efficiently delivers critical data and applications with blazing fast restores, and enables institutions to derive real value from data. It also plays a critical role in risk mitigation, continuity of teaching and learning, protecting institutional reputation, and student satisfaction.

While institutions grapple with the best approach to modernization, they face the ever-growing threat of a cyber breach – 57 percent of leaders reported an increase in the volume of cyberattacks on their institutions last year. With recent hacks at Los Angeles Unified School District and other high-profile school districts and institutions that shut down operations, the balance between access and security is as crucial as ever.