The rise of digital skimming, or e-skimming, attacks presents a growing threat to higher education institutions. As universities expand their online payment systems for tuition, donations, event tickets, and campus stores, they create numerous potential entry points for cybercriminals. Recent data from Visa indicates that 75% of breaches they investigate involve e-commerce sites, with e-skimming emerging as the preferred attack method of cybercriminals.
The decentralized nature of university digital ecosystems, with numerous websites run by different departments using diverse third-party integrations, creates dangerous blind spots in security oversight. Without a coordinated defense strategy, a single compromised script on any department’s website could expose sensitive payment data from students, parents, or donors.
Key Campus Stakeholders and Their Roles
Protecting against e-skimming requires a coordinated team effort spanning multiple departments and roles. No single person or unit can address this risk alone, as it touches many aspects of web operations—from technology selection to daily website management and compliance oversight.
- IT Web Development & Operations
These technical teams implement security measures on web properties handling payments, maintain script inventories, apply updates and patches, and deploy client-side protection tools like ScriptSafe, powered by Source Defense. Its simple implementation (two lines of code) minimizes the technical burden on these teams while providing comprehensive protection. - Information Security Team
The security team leads strategy and policy development, defines security requirements for payment pages, and ensures PCI DSS 4.0 compliance. ScriptSafe’s dashboard provides the visibility needed to monitor script behavior across all university websites, with AI-driven threat detection reducing alert fatigue for security teams. - Finance & Treasury
Finance champions PCI compliance, allocates resources, and controls budgets for necessary security tools. ScriptSafe’s compliance-focused reporting provides documentation that helps satisfy auditors and acquiring banks, justifying the investment in client-side security. - Procurement & Vendor Management
Since e-skimming often enters via third-party code, procurement plays a critical role by vetting vendors. ScriptSafe provides visibility into the behavior of third-party scripts, supporting better vendor risk management and enabling more informed procurement decisions. - Advancement & Alumni Relations
These teams often manage donation forms and event ticketing. ScriptSafe’s protection ensures these payment flows remain secure, maintaining donor trust and protecting critical revenue streams. - Marketing & Communications
Marketing teams frequently add various third-party scripts for analytics and optimization. ScriptSafe allows them to continue leveraging these tools while ensuring they cannot access sensitive payment data, balancing marketing needs with security requirements. - Academic & Administrative Departments
Departments running their websites benefit from the institution-wide protection that ScriptSafe provides, allowing them to maintain their online presence while conforming to security standards.
Building Effective Cross-Departmental Collaboration with ScriptSafe
ScriptSafe serves as both a technical solution and a collaboration facilitator:
- Create a Cross-Functional Task Force
ScriptSafe provides dashboards and reports that serve as common reference points for cross-functional teams, highlighting risks and promoting shared understanding of the threat landscape. These insights can inform task force priorities and drive meaningful action. - Implement Clear Policies and Communication Channels
ScriptSafe’s script inventory and classification capabilities help institutions develop evidence-based policies around third-party code usage. Their documentation supports clear communication about which scripts are approved and which present potential risks. - Conduct Joint Training and Awareness Programs
ScriptSafe offers educational resources, including webinars, whitepapers, and demonstration capabilities that show real-world e-skimming attacks. These materials can form the foundation of training programs that build awareness across departments. - Use Shared Tools and Dashboards
ScriptSafe’s platform provides a central dashboard that different stakeholders can access, creating a shared view of the institution’s security posture. This transparency fosters collaboration and collective responsibility. - Secure Executive Sponsorship
ScriptSafe’s compliance reporting and risk visualization help security teams translate technical concerns into business language that resonates with executives, supporting the case for cross-functional collaboration and resource allocation.
CampusGuard’ ScriptSafe Serves as a Strategic Partner
Beyond technology, ScriptSafe functions as a strategic partner in the fight against e-skimming. The expertise it brings in financial services security and compliance translates well to higher education environments. As verified by leading security assessors, their solutions effectively address PCI DSS requirements while providing robust protection against evolving threats.
As the pioneer in client-side security, ScriptSafe offers specialized tools that form a critical component of a higher education institution’s defense strategy. Their patented technologies address the core vulnerabilities exploited in e-skimming attacks while supporting PCI DSS 4.0 compliance requirements 6.4.3 and 11.6.1.
ScriptSafe Detect provides continuous monitoring of all scripts executing in browsers, creating an inventory of third-party code and alerting security teams to suspicious behaviors or unauthorized changes. This visibility helps institutions meet the script inventory requirements of PCI DSS 6.4.3 without manual effort.
ScriptSafe Protect goes beyond monitoring to provide real-time prevention through JavaScript sandboxing technology. This solution isolates third-party scripts and controls their behavior, preventing them from accessing sensitive form fields or exfiltrating data even if compromised. Deployment requires just two lines of code, minimizing implementation effort while providing maximum protection.
With less than five hours of management required per month, these solutions are designed to accommodate resource-constrained higher education environments while providing enterprise-grade security.
Final Thoughts
Higher education institutions can transform their defense against e-skimming by combining cross-functional collaboration with specialized security solutions like ScriptSafe. This dual approach addresses both the organizational challenges of coordinating across departments and the technical challenges of securing client-side web applications.
By leveraging ScriptSafe’s expertise and technology alongside improved stakeholder alignment, colleges and universities can effectively protect their communities’ sensitive data against the growing e-skimming threat while minimizing operational burden and ensuring compliance with evolving regulations.
Request a live demo to see how ScriptSafe can safeguard your institution, or contact us to learn more and get started!
