It’s no secret that higher education institutions are at risk for severe cyberattacks and data theft. Last year, the New York Times highlighted the “shaky state of student privacy” in the wake of a devastating cyberattack that left the personally identifiable information (PII) of millions of students compromised.
While the cyberattack in question targeted primary and secondary school students, those at higher education institutions are vulnerable as well. Colleges and universities tend to be slow to recover from cyberattacks, even as ransomware attacks against them continue to surge.
To protect the PII of students, higher education institutions should consider implementing self-sovereign identity (SSI) technology. In addition to returning control of PII back to the student, SSI technology can also help higher education institutions validate student identities far more quickly and securely. Let’s dive deeper into the nuts and bolts of SSI technology and its benefits.
Leveraging distributed ledger
Physical IDs like birth certificates, drivers’ licenses, and vaccine cards contain details like a person’s name, birthday, and address. With a physical ID, the sharing of personal details is all or nothing. Decentralized identity solutions, on the other hand, are a form of digital identification that lets users—in this case, college students—control what information is shared and with whom.
Piyush Bhatnagar, CISSP, MBA, is VP of security products and platforms with GCOM Software. Prior to GCOM, Piyush served as the Founder & CTO of Authomate.