As universities face increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, UC Berkeley is allying with other University of California campuses to address security risks, The Daily Californian reports.
UC Berkeley was previously underfunded for a college of its size but will increase investment in its central information security program from $1.5 million to $3 million for the next fiscal year. Universities face the challenge of protecting intellectual property and the personally identifiable data of their populations while preserving the openness unique to a research institution, the article says.
The cyberattacks and phishing attempts have seen an increase recently, and UC Berkeley’s chief information officer Larry Conrad says that hackers monitor UC well so they can replicate login pages as closely as possible so they can steal credentials.
The doubled funding for cyber security will bring the university up to par with its peers, but each individual will also have an active role – departments and researchers must remain aware of what data they have that could be breached, the article reports. The campus’s Information Services and Technology department has also emphasized clear data classification standards to inform departments of the level of security their data requires.