The number of cyberattacks on U.S. academic institutions has increased by more than 2,000 percent in the past five years, according to new research from the University of California San Diego (UCSD).

Education is a critical pillar of society. With this comes the accountability for institutes to protect their students. As an industry that handles sensitive information, it’s no surprise that the education sector is a hot target for cybercriminals. According to Business Insider, there have been numerous phishing attacks in the last few years targeting more than 100 universities, colleges and secondary schools with fake emails that ask for money to help their students learn.

The threats that come with cyberattacks for students include:

• Malware and viruses.
• Phishing attacks.
• Denial of service attacks.
• Data breaches, identity theft, and fraud.

Having control over our privacy and data in a digital-first world is extremely important and currently the paper-based degree certificates do not offer that.

Blockchain is a decentralized database that stores data in a series of blocks which are linked together by cryptographic hashes. The beauty behind this technology is its security. It’s impossible for anyone, including hackers, to change or delete any part of the blockchain.

Institutions should switch to these new age blockchain based degrees to protect their students and alumni from falling victim to cybercrimes. Blockchain based digital degree certificates help curb the cases of cyberattacks and data leaks by ensuring that the institutes do not have to share sensitive student data with third parties for issuance and verification. This ensures that their records are secure and cannot be accessed by hackers or other malicious users.

Since these degrees are published on blockchain and stored over the institute’s server, it becomes immune to any instances of data leaks or selling of databases.

There are many advantages to using blockchain technology in student records management:

• The data on hand is far more secure than paper-based degrees because it cannot be changed by anyone outside of the institution itself after it has been generated. This means that no one outside of the institution can tamper with any information about you—including photos!
• The technology has been around for over 10 years now so there’s already been plenty of time spent making sure that everything is done correctly and securely.
• Blockchain is available at a low cost so there’s no reason not to take advantage of this new technology today!

At CertOnce, we are a team of passionate individuals who believe in the power of blockchain technology. We believe that the future is bright, and we want to make sure that everyone has access to a degree certificate that is instantly verifiable, can be shared with anyone, and can be used as an authenticator for any other form of digital data.