The Role of Compliance in the Academic Sphere
Regardless of industry, maintaining data security is an essential step toward success as an organization. Compliance standards like the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which aids retail organizations in protecting cardholder data, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which covers data security issues for healthcare organizations, exist to help different industries secure their data.
The academic sphere is responsible for the sensitive data of staff, students and faculty across the United States. The main regulatory standard for educational institutions is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which applies to all schools that receive funds from the U.S. Department of Education. FERPA concerns itself primarily with the privacy of academic records. FERPA regulation applies to a wide range of records, from student transcripts stored in databases to notes written on Post-it notes.
FERPA was written in 1974, a time when nobody could have predicted how much educational institutions rely on technology today. Because of this, academic institutions should not settle for checkbox compliance, doing the bare minimum to continue receiving government funding. The high cost of a data breach means that academic institutions cannot afford to rely on outdated or insufficient core cryptographic infrastructures.
As new technologies become the norm, academic institutions need a data security system that is capable of growing along with the organization, a system that won’t swiftly become antiquated. The number of students attending institutions of higher education has increased drastically in the last decade. As universities gain more students, their systems have to be able to handle the increase in data. Additionally, because schools and universities must be able to view and manage student records on a daily basis, they need a cryptographic system that is not cumbersome and difficult to use.
When searching for a data security solution that covers academic organizations’ requirements for constant innovation, scalability, and ease of use, educational institutions need look no further than Futurex’s Hardened Enterprise Security Platform. The Hardened Enterprise Security Platform combines devices for encryption, key management, certificate authentication, TLS encryption, centralized management, and remote access into a comprehensive suite of data security solutions for the complete core cryptographic infrastructure. Futurex devices help academic institutions meet the compliance standards outlined in FERPA, PCI DSS, HIPAA, and more. To find out more about how your educational organization can benefit from Futurex’s data security platform, download our whitepaper or visit our website.