How secure is Moodle?

Globally, cyber attacks have increased by 38% in 2022, with the top three most attacked industries being Education / Research, Government and Healthcare. It is no surprise that for Higher Education providers, increased cyber security risk has come hand in hand with the shift to online and blended learning that has taken place over the last two years.

Universities are an attractive target for hackers because they handle vast amounts of personally identifiable information (of staff and students). Not only does this present risks for individuals , but the leak of data held by such organisations could jeopardise Australia more broadly.

In addition to the high remediation costs, there are potential long term commercial consequences for education providers.

A recent study in Canada found that a growing number (76%) of students are concerned about cyber safety and 46% say it would influence their decision to attend a university or college if the school was known to have experienced a data breach or had a reputation for weak cyber security.

At the same time, not many students follow the cyber safety guidelines they are provided with, which seems to be a growing concern in Australia as well.

How secure is Moodle LMS?

Moodle LMS is developed through a ‘security-by-design’ approach and supported by the global security community. The software is continuously tested and monitored, and achieves all privacy compliance obligations. Moodle also provides education and ongoing communication flows to their users and partners.

It is important to note however, that the software is just one part of the equation here. How it is managed and the infrastructure architecture it’s hosted in are other very important elements which are often beyond the software product provider’s control.

Why use a trusted, certified Moodle partner?

While no one is 100% protected at all times, using a certified Moodle partner will definitely offer many benefits that will outweigh the costs, especially if you are dealing with a larger, more complex Moodle instance. Having years of experience with Moodle projects, a certified partner can help optimise your LMS, achieving quality, efficiency and cost savings all at the same time.

Not to mention the extra support, customisation options, spam protection, daily backups and priority access to new releases and security patches, which you will only get if you invest in a partnership with a trusted provider.

And if you can leverage your partner’s secure and highly optimised cloud infrastructure as well as 24/7 support, you will be in the best position to have peace of mind and be able to focus on teaching, learning as well as ongoing internal staff training and development.

Strengthen your security.

There are a number of things you can do to protect your organisation such as:

• Invest in ongoing education and training for staff and students, as well as run random testing of security awareness and skills
• Stick to regular software updates
• Implement Single Sign On (SSO) and Multi-factor Authentication (MFA)
• Host your sites in a secure cloud infrastructure where all the necessary updates, patches and backups are automated and orchestrated
• Using an experienced hosting and IT managed service provider, that specialises in complex enterprise level IT systems will be your best bet; ideally with 24/7 support 
• Review your security policies and procedures on a regular basis
• Have a plan / appropriate support in place for when things do go wrong

Catalyst has been providing quality e-learning and Open Source solutions, customised to our clients individual needs for over 20 years. We specialise in software development and IT Managed Services designed for enterprise level and growing organisations. We are trusted by major universities and colleges as well as Government and major organisations in the Health, Not-for-Profit and Commercial Sectors.

All our hosting clients enjoy 24/7 Follow the Sun support and high availability, flexible and secure cloud infrastructure so they can focus on what they do best – providing quality teaching and learning experiences for their users.