Global Universities (PGU)

Project Global Universities (PGU) is an initiative dedicated to identifying and addressing unpatched security vulnerabilities within university systems worldwide. By conducting thorough scans of various academic institutions, the project aims to enhance cybersecurity and protect sensitive educational data from potential threats. This proactive approach not only strengthens individual universities’ defenses but also contributes to a safer global higher education network by sharing insights and best practices across institutions.

The Project

Why we help universities

Universities play a crucial role in society. They push limits with their research and educate tomorrow’s professionals, but they also have a lot of valuable (and potentially sensitive) data which is an attractive target for cyber criminals.

For now, we will focus our efforts on Universities in the Netherlands, but eventually we hope to expand our scope to the rest of Europe and eventually, the world.

What we do

CSIRT.global aims to research vulnerabilities in the publicly available assets of universities. We use publicly available sources to find assets and assess if they are vulnerable. If we find something vulnerable, we will report it to the university so that they can fix it before a malicious actor finds the vulnerability.

Why we do this

Our main priority is to make the digital world a safer place, but this project is also a great internship for students. They learn how to use security tools, how to responsibly disclose a vulnerability and how to communicate professionally. By letting students do this, we train future security experts while helping universities increase their digital safety.