Cybersecurity for Educational Institutions

Protecting institutional integrity through enterprise encryption

Academic enterprise encryption

Educational institutions cybersecurity solutions

Educational organizations are responsible for highly sensitive data like student records and faculty research. They must also facilitate student payments, issue ID cards, and maintain compliance with regulations like FERPA and PCI DSS.

Futurex provides the following hardware-based encryption solutions as a one-stop-shop for educational institutions, deployable on-premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid solution:

  • Data encryption and tokenization
  • Tamper-proof storage
  • Encryption key management
  • Digital signing and authentication
  • Payments security
  • ID card issuance
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education cybersecurity
Regulations briefing: FERPA

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requires that educational institutions strictly control access to student data. Any time student data is shared without encryption measures in place, FERPA compliance – and the federal funding that can accompany it – is at risk.

Regulations briefing: PCI DSS

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a compliance standard that articulates best practices for IT security. To comply with PCI DSS, educational institutions are encouraged to adopt risk-based cybersecurity measures to prevent academic data breaches.

The cybersecurity challenges facing educational institutions

Educational institutions have many cybersecurity responsibilities, such as protecting academic records, authenticating high-value faculty research, and maintaining security protocols across entire campuses or districts. As an added challenge, institutions must maintain FERPA or PCI DSS compliance while dealing with decentralized cryptographic infrastructures. Other challenges:

  • Protect student academic records
  • Sign and authenticate research data
  • Manage encryption keys and cybersecurity environments
  • Issue prepaid or student ID cards
  • Contend with decentralized IT infrastructure

Futurex cybersecurity solutions for educational institutions

Futurex provides hardware security modules (HSMs) and key management servers with tamper-proof controls. You can deploy them on-premises, in the cloud, or both. Futurex HSMs encrypt, transmit, and store data by using advanced algorithms. Key management services establish a public key infrastructure (PKI) and a certificate authority (CA) for digital certificates and signing. Futurex provides the following solutions:

  • Vaultless tokenization to protect data
  • FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified HSMs for encryption and storage
  • Offline root CA for digital signing and authentication
  • Scalable enterprise key management
  • Centralized management with specialized modules
Vaultless tokenization

Tokenization means replacing data with randomized strings during storage and transmission. Futurex goes one step further with vaultless tokenization, eliminating token storage databases, or vaults. This reduces PCI compliance scope and provides better security.

Vaultless tokenization
Certificate authority

Using Futurex enterprise key management servers, educational organizations can establish a PKI to secure private keys and create a root certificate authority (CA). The offline root certificate establishes a working certificate that can digitally sign and authenticate academic data.

Learn about our Issuing CA
Infrastructure security

All Futurex HSMs are certified secure cryptographic devices (SCDs). They come with both logical controls as well as physical tamper-proof and tamper-responsiveness. They offer full redundancy and disaster recovery and are FIPS 140-2 Level 3-validated by design.

Learn about our HSMs

In the cloud, on-premises, or a hybrid of both: Futurex delivers tailored cryptographic solutions to fit your business needs.

 

Any cryptographic function. Any size. Any scale. Any location.

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Explore educational institution cybersecurity solutions

Tokenization

Any depository of personal student information, such as academic records or personally identifiable information, has a high value on the black market. Futurex offers tokenization solutions that reduce risk while maintaining access for authorized users to keep this sensitive data secure. Rather than store important data in the clear, tokenization utilizes identifying text strings, or tokens, for storage. To retrieve stored data, send the relevant token to a hardware security module (HSM), which securely returns the requested data.

Digital Signing

Research requires large investments in time and resources to produce valuable findings, often at the expense of governmental agencies and other funding bodies. As a result, some individuals and organizations seek to complicate such investments by accessing and sometimes sabotaging the research of others. To ensure the authenticity of research, Futurex provides digital signing services through the KMES Series 3 or Excrypt Series, devices capable of providing asymmetric keys and certificates for document authentication.

Card issuance

Futurex card issuance and management solutions provide institutions with fast, convenient, and secure production of both prepaid and identification cards. You can use these cards to increase the convenience and security of on-campus transactions and identity authentication.

Futurex educational institution cybersecurity solutions portfolio

Application Encryption
Encrypt files or data fields at the application level to reduce the risk of exposing sensitive information in the clear.
Database Encryption
Balance security and availability to protect data across all devices and networks with TDE and hardened data encryption.
File Encryption
Encrypt files at rest before public transfer and control the key so that even your cloud provider can't access them.
Vaultless tokenization
Vaultless Tokenization
Protect valuable data with randomly generated, vaultless tokens to reduce risk and complexity.
Data Privacy
Use powerful and scalable HSMs and key management servers to encrypt and protect data in transit and at rest.

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