The ongoing digitalisation of all activities carried out by the Jagiellonian University makes the issue of cybersecurity one of its top priorities. The great rise in the number of cyberattacks launched at the education sector, which is now threatened three times as much as the banking sector, is an additional motivation for increasing the level of IT security.
The Jagiellonian University joins the international project Security Operation Centre in Central-Eastern Europe Region (SOCCER), which will involve a number of initiatives aimed to increase the University’s cybersecurity as well as sharing knowledge and strengthen the collaboration with other higher education institutions in Central-Eastern Europe. Apart from the Jagiellonian University, these include: AGH University of Science and Technology (project leader), Agricultural University of Kraków, Tomas Bata University, Masaryk University, CESNET, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University, Mykolas Romeris University and University of Tartu.
The SOCCER project is dedicated to fortifying the cybersecurity capabilities and resilience of the EU, with a paramount focus on ensuring a cyber-secure academia sector. Specifically tailored for CEE countries, the initiative aims to support the establishment and advancement of Security Operations Centres (SOCs) within Universities and Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs).
The CEE region is now being heavily affected by a multitude of cyber operations conducted in parallel to growing geopolitical tensions. At the same time, 2023 is on track to be a record-breaking year for ransomware attacks against education institutions, and almost 70% organizations in the educational sector suffered a cyberattack within the last 12 months.
The SOCCER project contributes to long-term policy objectives identified by the European Commission and European Union authorities in regards to EU-wide cybersecurity capacity building. It addresses the specific challenge of increasing number and sophistication of cyber-attacks and cyber-operations targeting the academic sector as well as the security challenge of the CEE region being at the frontline of the hybrid threats resulted from the Russian aggression on Ukraine.
The project envisages the EU-wide SOC’s ecosystem in the making and willing to integrate the academic sector with priorities and tasks which will be undertaken and implemented by ECCC and the Network of National Coordination Centres.
The cybersecurity in the academia sector is vital for protecting intellectual property, maintaining research integrity, preserving privacy, upholding institutional reputation, facilitating collaboration, ensuring regulatory compliance, safeguarding critical infrastructure, contributing to workforce development, and addressing national security considerations.
The idea of establishing a network of SOCs across the EU was introduced by The EU's Cybersecurity Strategy for the Digital Decade in order to support the improvement of existing centres and the establishment of new ones. The goal is to ‘support public-private and cross-border cooperation to create national and sectoral networks, involving also SMEs, based on appropriate governance, data sharing and security provisions’. The goal is to let network of SOCs become 'a real cybersecurity shield for the EU' which will connect ‘as many centres as possible across the EU to create collective knowledge and share best practices’.
Source: soccer.agh.edu.pl/en
