#And how communities at large no longer enforce boundaries and allow people to run around like it’s fucking KWF

[boundinparchment]

the only thing keeping me sane when it comes to fandom are:

the people and fellow creators who acknowledge the bullshit, sit on the porch with me and bitch about it. Meanwhile we also share things we do like and enjoy each other’s company💕

the polite and patient folks who sit on the stoop during story hour (fic updates)

because tbh everything else about fandom barely feels worth the time, energy, and headaches

[shirlleycoyle]

The Man Who Helped Turn 4chan Into the Internet’s Racist Engine

In two decades, 4chan has evolved from a message board where people talked about anime to a casually racist but influential creation engine of internet culture, and now into a generator of far-right propaganda, a place where dangerous conspiracy theories originate, and an amplifier of online bigotry. This evolution, according to 4chan moderators who spoke to Motherboard and leaked chat logs, is in large part because of an anonymous administrator who used moderation enforcement, or lack thereof, to allow the influential website to become a crucial arm of the far-right.

4chan attracted hordes of disaffected young men who trolled various other websites, creating popular memes (many of them racist or sexist) and originating a great deal of internet culture. In recent years, however, 4chan has evolved into something actively sinister: a hive of bigotry, threats of violence, and far right ideology. This rapid and severe descent wasn’t driven solely by the mass action of disgruntled young men. 

One current and three former 4chan moderators believe the process was aided along by the de facto administrator of the site, a far right supporter with the handle “RapeApe” who helped turn the site into a meme factory for extreme politics. Motherboard agreed to let the janitors speak anonymously because they said they signed non-disclosure agreements with 4chan.

Because of 4chan’s often wildly offensive content, many assume that the site is completely unmoderated. But 4chan has a corps of volunteers, called “janitors,” “mods,” or “jannies,” whose job it is—theoretically—to make sure that content on the site abides by the rules. (4chan draws a distinction between more senior “moderators,” who are responsible for all boards, and “janitors,” who patrol one or two; we refer to them interchangeably because janitors also moderate discussion.) The janitors we spoke to and a major trove of leaked chat logs from the janitors’ private communications channel tell the story of RapeApe’s rise from junior janny to someone who could decide what kind of content was allowed on the site and where, shaping 4chan into the hateful, radicalizing online community it's known for today.

Started in 2003 by Christopher Poole, 4chan was initially a place for people to discuss anime. Since its founding, the site has expanded to include discussion boards on everything from travel to fitness to video games to origami. It now claims around 22 million visitors a month. Some parts of it are also recruiting grounds for Neo-Nazi groups.

4chan’s more recent extremist element can be traced back to an infamous board: “politically incorrect,” which is listed as "/pol/" on the site. Ostensibly devoted to discussing politics, /pol/ threads often involve users calling each other racist terms, arguing for the genocide of whole nations or ethnicities, or debating about whether different concepts are “degenerate”—a Nazi term of art for material (or people) that ought to be purged. Posters there celebrate and lionize some of the most notorious mass murderers of the last decade, from Anders Breivik to Dylann Roof.

The forum has popularized iconography like Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character reappropriated by some as a racist symbol of the far right that President Trump’s son has tweeted images of. According to academic researchers, 4chan's /pol/ has become one of the most prodigious factories for content on the internet. And the boundaries of its influence spread far beyond the borders of 4chan itself, affecting everything from YouTube to Twitter to mainstream Republican politics.

The politically incorrect board wasn’t always this bad. In fact, former 4chan moderators told Motherboard that /pol/ wasn’t added to the site until 2011, eight years after the site started. For the first few years of its existence, according to two former janitors, Poole intended the /pol/ board to siphon off the racism from other areas of the site so that other users could enjoy their own, board-specific pursuits. 

“It was started as a containment board,” one former moderator told me about /pol/. According to chat logs and former moderators, in its early days, moderators at 4chan removed racist posts and users from other boards while ignoring them within one board, “random” (/b/, which was supposed to be a kind of “no rules, anything goes” space. /b/ is where many early memes were born, and is where the hacktivist group Anonymous came from). Such posts also sometimes slipped by on the /pol/ board as well, even though they technically violated the rules there. “Enforcement was more active in the past,” a former moderator said. In contrast to its current far right political climate, “4chan skewed extremely progressive when it first started,” according to the mod, although the use of bigoted and misogynistic language was widespread even then.

But 4chan has changed in recent years. Several studies of the site have shown that 4chan has become more racist, bigoted, and toxic in recent years—especially the /pol/ board. Ideologies propagated on /pol/ have become linked with violence and domestic terrorism. 4chan janitors' main job is to clean up and remove child pornography, lest 4chan draw the wrath of federal authorities, but they also shape the discourse there by setting the limits of acceptable discussion. If a thread goes off-topic or starts to get too racist, the janitors have the responsibility for asking mods to delete it and potentially issue bans against specific users.

According to leaked logs and the 4chan janitors who spoke with Motherboard, the manager of 4chan’s janitors is RapeApe. Relatively little is known about him, even by the janitors who spoke with us and worked for him, although he has been supervising 4chan’s day-to-day operations for around a decade. 

In 2015, Poole announced that he had decided to sell 4chan to a Japanese businessman named Hiroyuki Nishimura. Nishimura previously owned 2chan, a Japanese website which inspired 4chan. Janitors who spoke with Motherboard described Nishimura as being almost completely hands off, leaving moderation of the site primarily to RapeApe. 

“[RapeApe] basically fulfills the role of an administrator considering Hiroyuki [Nishimura], the actual admin, doesn't touch the site,” a current janitor told me. Poole and Nishimura did not respond to repeated requests for comment. RapeApe responded by sending an email that contained only a single link to a video of naked muscular men dancing.

Even prior to the site’s change in ownership, RapeApe functioned as the primary judge of what constituted acceptable content on the site, as well as the person who educated the staff on what did and didn’t cross the line. As Gamergate became a subject on the site in 2014, 4chan users began harassing women in the video game industry due to what they perceived as progressive bias in reporting on games. Eventually, RapeApe tried to stop 4chan’s campaign of intimidation. “[Gamergate] is no longer allowed on the video game boards. So said [RapeApe],” one janitor informed another in the leaked chats. When other jannies protested, RapeApe rapidly shut them down: “This isn’t a democracy,” RapeApe wrote. “Gamergate has overstayed its welcome. It is starting to cause a massive burden for moderation.” 

WASHINGTON, DC – AUGUST 12: Counterprotestors to the Unite the Right 2 rally burn a Kekistan flag, a white nationalist symbol, in the middle of 15th St. NW near the White House on August 12, 2018 in Washington, DC. Image: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

In 2015, an anonymous former moderator leaked an extensive chat history of the janitors from 2012-2015 to a file-sharing service. One of the former janitors included in the chats confirmed their authenticity. According to a brief message posted with the logs, the leaker was unhappy with “the direction of the site.” From those leaked logs and the current and former janitors who spoke with Motherboard, RapeApe claims to be a military veteran who served in Afghanistan as well as a voracious reader, interested in video games, guns, and Warhammer: 40,000. He often complained about his family impeding his work and was afraid they would walk in on him looking at questionable or pornographic posts as he was moderating.

According to the janitor and chat logs (as well as a deleted Twitter account two staff members confirmed was his), RapeApe is also politically conservative and racist. One former janitor described him as “a typical right winger and /pol/ dude.” His Twitter account featured him responding approvingly to Tucker Carlson clips, urging another user to buy an AR-15 rifle for self-defense, wondering whether the state would force people to be homosexual and suggesting that Twitter was “staffed by leftists” who were deleting conservative users’ accounts. In conversations with other janitors in the leaked chats, he found humor in horrifying news about riots, shootings, and the Ebola epidemic—especially when that news involved Black people dying.

But RapeApe isn’t just a typical /pol/ user who happens to run the site. According to three current and former staff members, RapeApe shaped 4chan into a reflection of his own political beliefs. “RapeApe has an agenda: he wants /pol/ to have influence on the rest of the site and [its] politics,” a current janitor said.

Alone, RapeApe couldn’t steer 4chan to the far right. But he supervises a staff of dozens of volunteers who control discourse on the boards. According to the leaked chats and janitors who spoke with Motherboard, he instructed janitors on how to handle the more bigoted content on 4chan—and dismissed them if they deleted content he likes. He took a special interest in the /pol/ board, telling a novice janitor in the chat logs to “treat /pol/ with kid gloves. So long as they obey the rules, they are allowed to support whatever abominable political positions they want.”

4chan has an extensive list of rules posted on the site and each board has its own smaller set of edicts. A little-known and rarely enforced 4chan regulation, Global Rule #3, prohibits racist content on the site. But the leaked chat logs show many incidents of moderators and janitors discussing when racism got severe enough that it ought to be banned. Indeed, RapeApe himself deleted at least one thread for violating Rule #3 early on in his 4chan career, before he became a manager.

Once he became head moderator, RapeApe began to post reminders that moderators ought to be as hands-off as possible. In the leaked logs and according to current and former janitors, RapeApe pushed his staff into a position where almost no content could run afoul of the rule against racism. Instructing the janitors, RapeApe wrote, “And remember that with racism we're targeting the intent of the poster and not the words themselves.” One current janitor told me that in practice, within 4chan’s warped, irony-poisoned culture, this meant there was no way to ban a user for even the most flagrant, bigoted language or images. They could always claim that the intent wasn’t racist, even if the content unquestionably was. 

"The plausible deniability excuse for racism—I was just joking, I was just trolling—is bullshit," Whitney Phillips, an Assistant Professor of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University and author of This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship Between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture, told Motherboard. "Intent can matter when thinking about the things people say, but it matters very little when considering consequences. Whether or not someone says a racist thing with hate in their heart, they're still saying a racist thing and that still contributes to dehumanization and the normalization of harm. Anyway, the very criterion is absurd, as you can't assess what's in someone's heart just by looking at the things they post, especially to a place like 4chan. The only reasonable conclusion is that, whatever might have been written in the site rules, this moderator ensured that there was no policy against racism. Instead it became a pro-racism policy."

The leaked chat logs show that RapeApe didn't want /pol/ to be totally unmoderated, despite allowing racist content. He was concerned with making sure 4chan wasn’t hosting illegal material. “Mostly I just want to keep the site legal,” he wrote to the staff in one message in the leaked chats. He posted frequent reminders to the channel to “take it easy” and ignore, rather than ban, racist content. In the leaked chats, RapeApe quotes judicial decisions on whether photos depicting animal abuse are illegal, concluding that they only rise to that level if the abuse is sexual in nature. In another case, he reluctantly told a janitor to delete some revenge porn, though not without belittling laws against it.

Nishimura’s purchase of the site in 2016 and RapeApe’s ascension to de facto administrator of 4chan coincides with an incredible 40 percent spike in the volume of racist and violent language on /pol/. Other, comparable sites and communication channels also pushed towards extreme conservatism independently of 4chan, so RapeApe and /pol/ certainly aren’t the only reasons why 4chan slid towards the far right. Some experts credited 4chan’s evolution to Donald Trump’s overtly-racist political campaign, others to an influx of new users, and still others to active interference and recruiting of 4channers by Neo-Nazi elements.

While other websites also host increasing amounts of violent and bigoted language, 4chan is an outlier even compared to other internet gathering places filled with similar ideologies. A VICE News analysis found that there was more hate speech on /pol/ than in the comments on one overtly Neo-Nazi site, the Daily Stormer. Mass murderers have posted manifestos on 4chan. White nationalists have used the site to coordinate protests. 

When one Neo-Nazi group polled their supporters to discover how they came to the movement, /pol/ was tied for the most common gateway. Gab, another far right hotbed, contains about half the rate of hate speech as /pol/, and 4chan has 20 times more users. The only popular websites more toxic than 4chan are its much smaller offspring sites, like 8chan, now 8kun.

According to one current and three former janitors, RapeApe’s push for a hands-off approach combined with his preference for janitors who shared his political beliefs has shifted the website further into the extremes of bigotry and threats of violence in which it now operates. “He wants 4chan to be more like /pol/,” said one former janitor.

Over time, /pol/ has come to dominate the public perception of 4chan, overshadowing the quieter, less vile topic areas which make up much of the activity on the site. /pol/ is regularly the most active board on the site, but even so, it makes up a small portion of the total posts. Under RapeApe’s management, however, /pol/’s bigotry has metastasized. 

“[W]hen RapeApe took over fully after [Poole] left, he put in a ‘laissez-faire’ policy of moderation, knowing exactly what would happen, that right wing ideas would dominate the site thanks to /pol/ spilling over onto other boards,” said a current janitor.

The /pol/ forum often hosts threads in which users talk about flooding other, unrelated boards with racial slurs and bigoted imagery. These “raids” expose users who were on 4chan to discuss other subjects to its unconventional, far-right politics. Posters who logged on to the site to chat about sports or browse pornography could find themselves learning about Neo-Nazi ideology instead. Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a professor at American University and expert on far-right extremism, describes this phenomenon as “gateway content.” Simply by exposing people to hate speech, psychologists have found that it’s possible to desensitize them to further hate speech and dehumanize outgroups. By raiding other boards and giving users a taste of their ideology, /pol/ diehards hoped to bring them into their fold.

In one incident from the chat logs, when a moderator tried to clean up such an “invasion” of the science board, RapeApe wasn’t having it. Rather than delete the thread a janitor described as planning a raid, RapeApe argued that they weren’t doing anything against the rules. “Are they actually vandalising or defacing anything, or harassing people?” RapeApe added: “Because if they're just posting things, that's not really a raid.” 

Current and former janitors say that one moderator named Modcat was fired for disagreeing withRapeApe's laissez-faire moderation policy. 

“Some jannies got in trouble for overusing [global rule 3, against racism],” said one former janitor. 

An analysis of the archives of the anime board (/a/) Modcat used to patrol, derived by scraping its past threads, shows that Modcat’s departure and replacement with another janitor had consequences on the language used there. Motherboard used a 4chan archive and wrote a program to scrape data from the board over the last five years, counting the number of instances of common hate speech terms against Black, Latino, Jewish, and LGBTQ people each day, as well as Neo-Nazi slogans. This program scraped text only and so did not include instances of speech within images, a common medium of communication on 4chan. Immediately after his departure, according to former moderators, /pol/ users raided the board, spamming Neo-Nazi slogans like “sieg heil” and “heil Hitler” in about one in every 50 posts. (Use of these terms had been negligible before Modcat left.) Even after the initial raid on /a/ subsided, there were long-term effects on the forum. During Modcat's brief tenure, the anime board had hate speech in only about one in every 50 posts overall. Since his departure, that has risen to about one in every 30 posts.

Leaked chat logs demonstrate other instances of seemingly politically-motivated firings. Not long after a janitor named yetsturdy argued that the use of terms like the n-word and stereotyped depictions of Jews violated 4chan’s rules, they were fired. (Leaked chat logs show janitors suggesting that his firing was due to arguing with another janitor). A janitor who described himself as a “lefty” in leaked logs was let go ostensibly for losing his anonymity, although another 4chan staff member with far right politics is open about his identity on Twitter and publishes newspaper editorials under his real name.

Others in the leaked janitor chats noticed the firings of their colleagues. One even alluded to RapeApe’s apparent agenda, asking him directly: “with all these janitors quitting/getting fired, is… is /pol/ winning?” (In the chat, RapeApe quickly denied that it had anything to do with /pol/’s political agenda, saying that the fired janitors had violated clear rules.)

Five years later, the politically incorrect board’s conflict with the rest of 4chan has been settled: /pol/ won. After years of declining volume both there and on the site in general, /pol/’s activity (in terms of the number of users and posts) is on the rise once again, according to a site that tracks 4chan. Jumping upwards in May 2020, /pol/ boasted the highest number of posts per day since election day in 2016, when ecstatic users celebrated Trump’s victory by calling for a second Holocaust and harassing journalists.

/pol/’s surging popularity coincides with a boost for the rest of the site as well. According to SimilarWeb, a company that tracks web traffic, 4chan has risen to become one of the top 400 sites in the United States in terms of engagement and visits. The domain now rivals or exceeds major news sites in terms of the number of visitors: it gets more traffic than abcnews.com, for example.

And the /pol/ channel continues to create massive amounts of right-wing content. RapeApe’s “meme factory,” as he described /pol/ in one leaked chat log, is chugging along smoothly. “[RapeApe has] basically fulfilled his intentions,” a current janitor told me. “[4chan] exists as a fully developed political tool used for propagating memes and propaganda.” 4chan’s content sometimes spreads beyond its esoteric corner of the internet into the mainstream discourse, using a well-established pipeline running through Reddit and Twitter into more popular channels.

Journalists have chronicled the outsized influence 4chan has had on our culture and created many theories to explain its slide into racist extremism, connections to the rise of Donald Trump, and a surge in white nationalist movements around the world. Disaffected young men across the globe have participated in creating a hateful melting pot of conspiracy theories, bigotry, and hate speech with a massive, global audience.

We can’t know exactly how much impact the rhetoric on the site had on the world or the full extent of its influence on the broader political landscape. But we can dispel some of the mystery about how 4chan became filled with hate. Like every other platform, 4chan’s evolution stems in part from the choices made by its administrators about what speech is acceptable and what is not. Facebook allowed Holocaust denial content until Mark Zuckerberg decided not to; Reddit allowed its Donald Trump-focused subreddit to popularize 4chan’s content until it shut it down. 4chan became the dangerous cesspool we know today because of the choices of a site administrator who wanted to amplify far right content and an owner who doesn’t care.

The internet is one of the most powerful technologies the world has ever known, but why that power so often results in dehumanizing and hurting people is not as mysterious as we sometimes assume. It is the direct result of the choices people with control over internet platforms make.

The Man Who Helped Turn 4chan Into the Internet’s Racist Engine syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[terabitweb]

Original Post from Rapid7 Author: Caspian Kilkelly

At a high level, educational institutions and other organizations have similar cybersecurity risk profiles, but there are a few very specific areas that differ. Intellectual property, research needs, end users, privacy, budget, and specific compliance regulations shift the landscape from “typical” enterprise security work to something that is far more varied in nature. Cybersecurity risk, in this case, is defined as any type of uncertainty that can cause damage, loss of value, or harm to the organization via computer systems, networks, and other digital devices. Discussions about risk can get a little fuzzy when we approach them from the wrong angle, but there is a very large academic and professional body of work covering exactly how to quantify, qualify, and talk about risk-related topics.

The risk landscape for education includes a couple of key features that are a little more prominent than in other organizations. Communication, management, and governance are fairly universal problem areas in security, but the specific geography of most educational institutions increases the “silos of excellence” factor within the IT and security functions. This often leads to issues with monitoring, network boundaries, and other technical risks because budgets and policies always affect security strategy. Data risks are also significant for education due to both the varied nature of the data on the networks and the (sometimes unrecognized) need for compliance with local, national, and international regulations.

See How Rapid7 Solutions Cater to the Higher Education Industry

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Communication, management, and organization-based risks

Communication and governance around IT and information security are probably the biggest risk multipliers for most organizations, but they’re compounded by the organization of higher education institutions. The larger the school, the more likely it is that security policies, messaging, and even IT budgets aren’t being shared across departments, faculties, or the institution as a whole. This can lead to a lot of missed opportunities for threat and risk awareness, information sharing, and overall security improvement. Internal policies can often add to this, leaving the cybersecurity team working with siloed management and communication.

This type of situation is dangerous for both day-to-day operations and long-term security strategy. A lack of clear authority boundaries, trust, and communication can seriously affect any attempt at managing a campus-wide or institutional security program. To add to that, communication issues often mean that emerging threats, program risks, and even incidents go unreported for far longer than they should. Shadow IT departments can enhance institutional risks on campus by encouraging silos, and they often reduce the impact of any mitigation or response processes. Budget separation is also a contributor, leading to situations in which some institutions have per-department or per-faculty security teams with limited coordination, low communication, and slow response to incidents.

A key factor in combating this risk is visibility. If cybersecurity personnel aren’t able to communicate across the campus and get out in front of security issues, any other program improvements, policy changes, and enforcement or response efforts are going to be slowed. PWC estimates that 30% of the cybersecurity incidents that occur globally within their client base are caused by employees—either intentionally or accidentally. According to the 2019 Verizon DBIR, a significant portion of the breaches and incidents in educational organizations are based around malware and other threats that can often be reduced by uniform policies. Ideally, every cybersecurity team needs someone to be the advocate, speaker, and front-person for the policy effort. This is as critical a role as any other on the team and often blends well with training and awareness, and incident response efforts.

Technical risks

Budget and authority limitations, as well as questions of ownership, are difficult to solve but are major drivers for security program gaps and major risks. Vulnerability management programs are an excellent example of this and a good area to start pushing for organizational change and improvement. It’s clear that vulnerability management programs are necessary on even the smallest networks due to the consistent exploitation of even the oldest threats. Rapid7’s Under the Hoodie reports consistently show that the majority of the vulnerabilities our penetration testers exploit are decades old; most of these can be mitigated or completely eradicated through solid vulnerability and patch management.

While vulnerability management might be a pain point for most, it’s part of a set of higher risks for educational institutions due to the overall IT footprint and the ability to monitor endpoints and networks. Network segmentation, inventory, and monitoring are all crucial to cybersecurity and information security risk reduction—so much so that the Center for Internet Security, NIST, and other standards organizations put them on top of their critical control lists.

Knowing what’s going on inside the network rather than just at its boundaries is the key to reducing risk. Patching, inventory control, and vulnerability management all link together to help lower the risk presented by old, uncontrolled, or just plain dangerous systems. This is another area in which education and research institutions differ from typical enterprises: there’s more old, risky equipment on the networks. The estimated 55% market share of systems running legacy versions of Windows applies to educational networks and research institutions as much as it does to other enterprises that rely on embedded or specialty systems. Due to budget and research needs, it may be hard to get rid of that million-dollar high-speed chromatography device that still runs Windows XP, but that doesn’t mean it should just sit there waiting to get attacked. An additional bonus to vulnerability management and inventory controls is that they allow the IT and budget folks to get a handle on what is where, who owns it, and, to a lesser extent, how it’s funded. This can be really helpful in defining everything from security groups and access control lists to annual departmental budgets.

Placing controls around the critical devices to limit the risks from attackers, unauthorized users, accidents, and malware requires both the knowledge that the system exists and the ability to monitor it. Centralized monitoring and configuration tools such as SCCM, ServiceNow, and other services (such as vulnerability management, software management, Active Directory, antivirus, and endpoint protection suites) are really useful for this, but stepping beyond that to a security orchestration and automation (SOAR) solution is ideal. With a SOAR tool, you can feed all of the ownership, service, and system data into a single aggregator and automate the easy stuff so that the security team can focus on incident response, strategy, and improvement instead of managing tools and low-level operations. Having a single source or service for this information definitely requires work, but it’s a significant advantage once the tools are correctly set up.

Data risks

At the network and VLAN edges, monitoring is critical for the obvious stuff, such as malware activity, vulnerability exploitation, and lateral movement. It also has a positive impact on data loss and intellectual property risks. Large educational institutions are a little like ISPs in the sense that they have a massive and diverse user base. However, they’re different in that they are responsible for more than just client PII and they can apply policies that include data loss prevention and monitoring for unusual activity. Usually, this policy application can be done while balancing researchers, staff, and student needs for privacy and accommodation. Separating networks by activity and monitoring pattern helps reduce the risk of privacy invasion while still maintaining some sense of data safety. Microsoft has written a lot on using Active Directory and tools like User Rights Assignment to do just this.

Critical data is a lot like radioactive material—it’s important to know where it is, keep it safely contained, and dispose of it in a way that it can’t do any harm. Also, it’s often controlled by governmental and international regulations, and it’s not something most people should handle without training. Higher education often has massive amounts of data that present significant risks to students, staff, and the institution if exposed to the wrong party. Awareness training helps with this, as does solid policy (provided it’s clearly communicated and carefully enforced).

Training for data will improve security

Training should cover more than basic compliance, especially in areas where researchers or staff are handling data that can cause harm. The exposure risks from research data might vary heavily, but supporting ethics and review committees with training and technical security knowledge will act as a force multiplier for data safety in most places. The usual steps around ensuring the school’s data is inventoried and safe, and placing controls around who has access to what information, are all critical to ensuring data risks are reduced.

A little training never hurts—at a larger scale, awareness of basic cybersecurity hygiene should be a 100-level course for anyone (students or staff) on the network. According to the 2019 Verizon DBIR, social engineering attacks are the second biggest cause of breaches (32%). Credential sharing and other security hygiene problems are often part of this root cause. Services like KnowBe4 and other awareness testing processes can help with training, but they must be tailored for staff, students, and a transient user base. Augmenting training with the use of captive portals that carry out virus and vulnerability scanning on guest WiFi, passive awareness tools like signs and explainers, and ongoing education can all help improve overall higher education security and reduce risks in other areas, as well.

Conclusion

Data, IT, and cybersecurity risks for higher education institutions are elevated, but a focus on strong internal communication, governance, and centralized monitoring and management will help reduce them quickly and effectively. Data handling, policy development, vulnerability management, incident response, and asset management processes all benefit from stronger interdepartmental and inter-faculty communication and the reduction of silos across campus. The use of security orchestration and automation technology can simplify a lot of the centralized monitoring and management work, but the key to risk reduction is a combination of internal awareness, careful security management, and patience. For more information, here are some key takeaways for your organization:

Data handling can be significantly improved by better communication and training at the staff level, along with clear policies and guidelines.

The use of awareness campaigns surrounding safe data handling works to reduce risks.

Phishing training and other tools will help with staff, but they can’t reach everybody.

Mandatory employee training (for staff, faculty, etc.) is a good approach.

Support and assist any research councils and other committees as much as possible. It will build a stronger community and lead to better data safety.

Inventory control (and monitoring) is hard, but it’s the biggest force-multiplier for any security program and will save the institution time, money, and headaches.

Centralized control will help cut down on IT costs for the institution

Vulnerability management and config programs can help unify the security process, and should help reduce risks across the campus, but they won’t reach everything.

Network separation and containment for old technology, high-risk systems and the stuff that should just never connect to the internet needs to be a priority.

Vulnerability management, monitoring, and SOAR technologies will help with a lot of the technical controls, but make sure there are people to handle it all the way down to the faculty and service-desk level.

Good security requires steady, constant communication, silo-breaking, and patience, because all higher education institutions are just a microcosm of society. There’s definitely going to be conflict, but a lot of it is solvable.

Getting out in front of the security program and talking about the benefits is a good way to start.

Enabling staff, faculty and students will encourage communication

Improving communication cuts down on gaps, unprotected systems, and other risks.

Having a communicator or “front person” is critical for communication and advancement. This will often be someone who is good at doing training, awareness, and public-speaking work.

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Go to Source Author: Caspian Kilkelly Defining Cybersecurity Risk for Higher Education Original Post from Rapid7 Author: Caspian Kilkelly At a high level, educational institutions and other organizations have similar cybersecurity risk profiles, but there are a few very specific areas that differ.

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MS Dhoni Breaks The Internet By Showing Off Dance Moves On Instagram

You have visible MS Dhoni dance down the tune to break bowlers out of the park. But how often have you visible Captain Cool set the dance floor on the hearth? Here’s your threat.

MS Dhoni took to Instagram to the percentage a video where he is seen shaking a leg with teammate Ben Stokes and Ajinkya Rahane. He’s not most effective left Growing Pune Supergiant games in awe But all and sundry around the world.

Before the begin of the Indian Choicest League, MS Dhoni turned into eliminated as captain of the RPS franchise. His substitute changed into Steve Smith, who led them to their first victory of the season against Mumbai Indians.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni – Traces of Arrogance

After India didn’t win the third take a look at in opposition to New Zealand at Wellington Dhoni stated abnormal matters in defending himself or his selections. He stated that extra 70-80 runs supply his bowler’s extra scope to assault. This is opposite to commonplace good judgment. The less the target the extra self-assurance you display on your bowlers. Putting a humanly impossible target of over 600 runs makes the court cases a mere ritual. The time you lose inside the procedure adds to the competition’s resolve to stop the suit.

No group in check Cricket history ever efficiently chased more than 418 runs in the last innings. India created history in 1976 at Port of Spain once they won the third check against West Indies efficaciously chasing a huge 403 runs within the fourth innings. within the New Zealand grounds, the final innings largest run chases were a whole lot lesser than that. At the Wellington pitch, the winning run chases inside the fourth innings had been much less than even 300.

Dhoni once more said that he predicted to get the new Zealand all out in 110-

120 overs and so he did now not hassle a whole lot approximately the climate component. How on the planet could one count on the competition to cave in as per his wish? You just can not afford to be overconfident or complacent in a game of cricket.

And, those utterances from a captain who’s replete with plentiful nice vibes and absolutely the maximum a hit one to steer group India. Fulfillment in cricket ends in tremendous riches and for that reason hype is created and hype ends in an entire lot of bad characteristics such as arrogance. And, this leads to a possible painful decline like we’ve seen in the case of Saurav Ganguly.

Arrogance is the last element that cricket lovers could need Dhoni to domesticate.

His high-quality power is doing wonders to a crew that becomes used to play broadly speaking safe video games and try to save or lose matches in place of trying to win.

MS Dhoni is the first-rate possible aspect to take place to Indian cricket and he’s something to be handled with utmost care. His nice body language and attacking cricket have to pass on undeterred to take India to the pinnacle.

Chinmay Chakravarty is an expert specialized in the innovative subject with over a long time of enjoying in journalistic writing, media co-ordination, movie script writing, movie dubbing, movie & video making, management of international film festivals and editing of books & journals. Talented in imparting professional offerings in those related fields. Currently working in Mumbai Doordarshan as a News Editor.

Porter’s Five Forces Model And Internet Competition

online Porter’s 5 Forces Model, in my opinion, the opposition has expanded average as a result of the internet and e-Trade. The net and IT has made it feasible to both cognizance on the pinnacle and backside online and a market percentage is accelerated and fees are reduced. Many products and services exist just online, primary agencies have long past online to effectively increase the brick and mortar businesses, and the gambling on-line is all the manner to edges of our on-online, anyplace this is. We are able to further examine this stepping thru all 5 forces.

Client strength is better whilst consumers have greater choices.

Businesses are pressured to feature value to their services and products to get loyalty. Many loyalty applications consist of extraordinary services that customers demand . clients need to remedy their troubles and often they are greater a hit than on-phone. Also, we see net savvy Agencies bobbing up providing more valuable items and offerings at decrease charges. Now with the advent of eBay, many people are assuming roles as drop shippers. Individuals could have a thriving enterprise selling goods of large companies while not having to carry stock.

Supplier energy is better whilst consumers have fewer selections from whom to buy

As noted in advance, drop transport has extended a number of providers available. All a man or woman has to do is form and settlement to sell products for the company. The company looks after all the logistics. The equal is true of pals programs that Amazon.Com and Google.Com offer. associates permit a webmaster to earn cash through recommending merchandise from others. This will increase Provider services.

Chance of replacement services or products is high when there are many product options. This is special than having many suppliers. Examples of alternatives are exchanging emblem names, substituting credit score card abilities, and looking at higher values from less expensive resources. The internet allows this with the “global economy”. I’m able to replacement my product by means of buying from agencies remote places wherein exertions, services and products are inexpensive but of similar exceptional.

The danger of new entrants is excessive when it is simple for brand spanking new opposition to go into the marketplace

Well, what have we been talking about? Now, small operations can open shop with less than $10.00 per online month and make loads of money. As ingenious as people are, there are continually possibilities to do enhance a services or products or just create and sell something new. Lately, many new entrants have made even extra cash authoring Ebooks that inform others the way to do what they did. Competition amongst competitors is high when competition is more excessive within industries.

Bookstores and catalog groups are the first-rate instances

Amazon.Com and Barnesandnoble.Com are very competitive. However, there are many Also smaller niche affiliate bookstores that once combined take a lot of market shares. They offer even more competition. However, each predominant bookstores have used IT to create the fee for his or her customers. These values include friends programs, ease of fee and shipping and many, many others.

The net offers avenues of competition to existing companies and possibilities for start-ups. Now Agencies can enter the market with few boundaries to entry. Porter’s 5 Forces Model can help display the attractiveness of starting your commercial enterprise. A commercial enterprise man or woman ought to use the Version to pick out opposition, make a plan, and enforce the method.

To Instagram or Not? How to Use Social Media to Your Advantage in Modeling

Maintain everything moderately, inclusive of your social media posts. Publish pix naturally and usually Hold connecting along with your audience. Explicit exact values which include gratitude by using thanking your fans for compliments.

Gain fans and follow influential models yourself

Aside from collecting your vital statistics, top and weight etcetera, businesses and scooters are increasingly more looking at your media presence, your likes, and fans. There isn’t a selected variety but of course greater the merrier. It signifies your capacity to market yourself, and your enchantment to the common folks, or audience. With that said, social media best gives a delivered benefit, and you still have to impress all through your interviews and casting calls. Find out extra approximately how you can ace your casting call.

Walk the communicate and comply with influential models yourself inclusive of Adrian Lima and Gisele Bundchen who frequently Put up their version photos and replace their social media money owed. Following such humans may also provide your ability model corporations an experience of your interest in fashion and modeling. Take caution that these excessive-profile models have an exceptional dynamic from you and if you are nevertheless new or low key on social media your use of it have to be strategically applicable on your function. Do now not simply replica the pinnacle fashions style complete sale. Even though it by no means hurts to analyze from the first-rate, models have to take the positives and practice them such that it fits our unique network as it should be.

Include social media, but continue to be a mystery too

There are a few high profile fashions that remain low-key on social media. Kate Moss is one such instance; she is press-shy and never takes snapshots in public. Publish essential images, however, remember to constantly Preserve the thriller. Do now not Maintain spamming posts; hold a few restraint to your posting. You virtually need to avoid the effect of disturbing your fans by way of constantly acting anywhere on their social media feed,

Specifically, if you posting matters which can be less crucial like cat or food snapshots. supply some days destroy and periods between posts, and do not forget much less is greater. If you have not anything properly don’t Put up it. Most significantly, staying low also means lesser possibilities to make offensive posts. With the intention to upward thrust up the ladder of social media enchantment, it is critical posts are nicely excellent checked and that which keeps enthusiasts and followers, therefore maintaining your enchantment for a longer time period.

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MS Dhoni Breaks The Internet By Showing Off Dance Moves On Instagram

You have visible MS Dhoni dance down the tune to break bowlers out of the park. But how often have you visible Captain Cool set the dance floor on the hearth? Here’s your threat.

MS Dhoni took to Instagram to the percentage a video where he is seen shaking a leg with teammate Ben Stokes and Ajinkya Rahane. He’s not most effective left Growing Pune Supergiant games in awe But all and sundry around the world.

Before the begin of the Indian Choicest League, MS Dhoni turned into eliminated as captain of the RPS franchise. His substitute changed into Steve Smith, who led them to their first victory of the season against Mumbai Indians.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni – Traces of Arrogance

After India didn’t win the third take a look at in opposition to New Zealand at Wellington Dhoni stated abnormal matters in defending himself or his selections. He stated that extra 70-80 runs supply his bowler’s extra scope to assault. This is opposite to commonplace good judgment. The less the target the extra self-assurance you display on your bowlers. Putting a humanly impossible target of over 600 runs makes the court cases a mere ritual. The time you lose inside the procedure adds to the competition’s resolve to stop the suit.

No group in check Cricket history ever efficiently chased more than 418 runs in the last innings. India created history in 1976 at Port of Spain once they won the third check against West Indies efficaciously chasing a huge 403 runs within the fourth innings. within the New Zealand grounds, the final innings largest run chases were a whole lot lesser than that. At the Wellington pitch, the winning run chases inside the fourth innings had been much less than even 300.

Dhoni once more said that he predicted to get the new Zealand all out in 110-

120 overs and so he did now not hassle a whole lot approximately the climate component. How on the planet could one count on the competition to cave in as per his wish? You just can not afford to be overconfident or complacent in a game of cricket.

And, those utterances from a captain who’s replete with plentiful nice vibes and absolutely the maximum a hit one to steer group India. Fulfillment in cricket ends in tremendous riches and for that reason hype is created and hype ends in an entire lot of bad characteristics such as arrogance. And, this leads to a possible painful decline like we’ve seen in the case of Saurav Ganguly.

Arrogance is the last element that cricket lovers could need Dhoni to domesticate.

His high-quality power is doing wonders to a crew that becomes used to play broadly speaking safe video games and try to save or lose matches in place of trying to win.

MS Dhoni is the first-rate possible aspect to take place to Indian cricket and he’s something to be handled with utmost care. His nice body language and attacking cricket have to pass on undeterred to take India to the pinnacle.

Chinmay Chakravarty is an expert specialized in the innovative subject with over a long time of enjoying in journalistic writing, media co-ordination, movie script writing, movie dubbing, movie & video making, management of international film festivals and editing of books & journals. Talented in imparting professional offerings in those related fields. Currently working in Mumbai Doordarshan as a News Editor.

Porter’s Five Forces Model And Internet Competition

online Porter’s 5 Forces Model, in my opinion, the opposition has expanded average as a result of the internet and e-Trade. The net and IT has made it feasible to both cognizance on the pinnacle and backside online and a market percentage is accelerated and fees are reduced. Many products and services exist just online, primary agencies have long past online to effectively increase the brick and mortar businesses, and the gambling on-line is all the manner to edges of our on-online, anyplace this is. We are able to further examine this stepping thru all 5 forces.

Client strength is better whilst consumers have greater choices.

Businesses are pressured to feature value to their services and products to get loyalty. Many loyalty applications consist of extraordinary services that customers demand . clients need to remedy their troubles and often they are greater a hit than on-phone. Also, we see net savvy Agencies bobbing up providing more valuable items and offerings at decrease charges. Now with the advent of eBay, many people are assuming roles as drop shippers. Individuals could have a thriving enterprise selling goods of large companies while not having to carry stock.

Supplier energy is better whilst consumers have fewer selections from whom to buy

As noted in advance, drop transport has extended a number of providers available. All a man or woman has to do is form and settlement to sell products for the company. The company looks after all the logistics. The equal is true of pals programs that Amazon.Com and Google.Com offer. associates permit a webmaster to earn cash through recommending merchandise from others. This will increase Provider services.

Chance of replacement services or products is high when there are many product options. This is special than having many suppliers. Examples of alternatives are exchanging emblem names, substituting credit score card abilities, and looking at higher values from less expensive resources. The internet allows this with the “global economy”. I’m able to replacement my product by means of buying from agencies remote places wherein exertions, services and products are inexpensive but of similar exceptional.

The danger of new entrants is excessive when it is simple for brand spanking new opposition to go into the marketplace

Well, what have we been talking about? Now, small operations can open shop with less than $10.00 per online month and make loads of money. As ingenious as people are, there are continually possibilities to do enhance a services or products or just create and sell something new. Lately, many new entrants have made even extra cash authoring Ebooks that inform others the way to do what they did. Competition amongst competitors is high when competition is more excessive within industries.

Bookstores and catalog groups are the first-rate instances

Amazon.Com and Barnesandnoble.Com are very competitive. However, there are many Also smaller niche affiliate bookstores that once combined take a lot of market shares. They offer even more competition. However, each predominant bookstores have used IT to create the fee for his or her customers. These values include friends programs, ease of fee and shipping and many, many others.

The net offers avenues of competition to existing companies and possibilities for start-ups. Now Agencies can enter the market with few boundaries to entry. Porter’s 5 Forces Model can help display the attractiveness of starting your commercial enterprise. A commercial enterprise man or woman ought to use the Version to pick out opposition, make a plan, and enforce the method.

To Instagram or Not? How to Use Social Media to Your Advantage in Modeling

Maintain everything moderately, inclusive of your social media posts. Publish pix naturally and usually Hold connecting along with your audience. Explicit exact values which include gratitude by using thanking your fans for compliments.

Gain fans and follow influential models yourself

Aside from collecting your vital statistics, top and weight etcetera, businesses and scooters are increasingly more looking at your media presence, your likes, and fans. There isn’t a selected variety but of course greater the merrier. It signifies your capacity to market yourself, and your enchantment to the common folks, or audience. With that said, social media best gives a delivered benefit, and you still have to impress all through your interviews and casting calls. Find out extra approximately how you can ace your casting call.

Walk the communicate and comply with influential models yourself inclusive of Adrian Lima and Gisele Bundchen who frequently Put up their version photos and replace their social media money owed. Following such humans may also provide your ability model corporations an experience of your interest in fashion and modeling. Take caution that these excessive-profile models have an exceptional dynamic from you and if you are nevertheless new or low key on social media your use of it have to be strategically applicable on your function. Do now not simply replica the pinnacle fashions style complete sale. Even though it by no means hurts to analyze from the first-rate, models have to take the positives and practice them such that it fits our unique network as it should be.

Include social media, but continue to be a mystery too

There are a few high profile fashions that remain low-key on social media. Kate Moss is one such instance; she is press-shy and never takes snapshots in public. Publish essential images, however, remember to constantly Preserve the thriller. Do now not Maintain spamming posts; hold a few restraint to your posting. You virtually need to avoid the effect of disturbing your fans by way of constantly acting anywhere on their social media feed,

Specifically, if you posting matters which can be less crucial like cat or food snapshots. supply some days destroy and periods between posts, and do not forget much less is greater. If you have not anything properly don’t Put up it. Most significantly, staying low also means lesser possibilities to make offensive posts. With the intention to upward thrust up the ladder of social media enchantment, it is critical posts are nicely excellent checked and that which keeps enthusiasts and followers, therefore maintaining your enchantment for a longer time period.