Cyber Security Concerns in E-learning Education

Cyberspace refers to the boundless space known as the Internet. Cyber security is the body of rules put in place for the protection of this cyberspace. The increasing use of e-Learning systems has been documented by numerous studies and shows continuing growth; little attention has been given to the issue of security of e-Learning systems both in research and education. In this paper, we illustrate an approach to understanding, evaluating, monitoring, measuring and managing cyber security as it relates to e-Learning systems. Security of e-Learning systems represents a unique challenge as numerous systems are accessed and managed via the Internet by thousands of users over hundreds of networks. Moreover, this paper reveals the prevalence of internal cyber-attack as well as a lack of proper IT policies and procedures in e-Learning systems, in light of their standard architecture and their specific security requirements. Also, we discuss the most important security challenges that can be relevant for distributed e-Learning systems. Because e-Learning systems are open, distributed and interconnected, then security becomes an important challenge in order to ensure that interested, and authorised, actors only have access to the right information at the appropriate time.