Vulnerability Assessment in Growing Education Ecosystem

Education is basic need of every individual across the globe. Educational model is changing from traditional education to smart education. Covid-19 and industrial revolution 4.0 has shaped the education in different dimensions. Technology has made education a global affair. Anybody can study from anywhere with the help of smart devices. Institutions to educators and educators to users uses ICT and other data communication technologies. Data is volatile in nature and needs protection mechanism while shared through internet. With the technology advancements and evolutions like adoption of ML (machine learning), AI (artificial intelligence) and IoT (internet of things), attacking surface is increasing and cyber-attacks are becoming more and more complex. An unorganised adaptation of latest technology in education sector has made it essential to fill the weaknesses and loopholes pertaining to cyber security and safety over internet exposure through smart devices. Moreover, lack of cyber awareness and absence of essential cyber sanity checks has exposed the vulnerability in smart education system. Thus, VA (vulnerability assessment) and PM (patch management) in this sector becomes essential to cater the cyber security and safety needs of education ecosystem. A study to understand criticality of data safety in this sector and importance of VA and PM to mitigate the impact of attack is discussed here. The need of VA, study of most commonly exploited vulnerabilities and VA work flow is also covered in this paper.