The holistic analysis conducted in this article aimed to identify vulnerabilities, cyber-attacks and ways to mitigate them in IoT systems, which are increasingly implemented in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Industry 4.0 is gaining ground in academia, which governs with a large volume of sensitive data, and the growing use of IoT systems brings a number of undeniable benefits and growing challenges. The creation of smart university campuses, of innovative laboratories that allow the simulation of technological processes but also of smart classes that use a mix of technologies for the education of professionals in Industry 4.0, represents the future of education. That is why the security analysis of IoT systems is very important to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of academic data.

. Data protection in public organizations in the Republic of Moldova (RM) is ensured by implementing mandatory cyber security controls (MCSR) adopted by the Government. In order to analyze the completeness of the controls, a comparative study was conducted between MCSR and the cyber security standard ISO 27001. The intention to comply with international cyber security standards is reflected in the Strategy on Information Security in the RM for 2019-2024. Compliance with national cyber security controls to international standards will ensure the security of the organization's data and resources by implementing effective, time-verified security controls. Another benefit is the confidence of foreign partners in public organizations of the country, because there will be guarantees that the data provided is confidential, complete and available. It is very important to increase the number of public organizations, certified with the ISO 27001 standard in Moldova in order to ensure the level of compliance with international cyber security requirements. The gap method, which was used in this study, measures the completeness of the MCSR, which is mandatory for public institutions in the Republic of Moldova, compared to the international standard ISO 27001. Based on the results obtained, a series of recommendations were developed which include: the creation of information security management systems (ISMS); performing internal and external audit of systems to meet trends; alignment of the MCSR, issued by the Government of the Republic of Moldova to the security controls of the ISO 27001 standard. It is very important to ensure an acceptable level of cyber security in public institutions in the Republic of Moldova, therefore implementation and certification with international standards is mandatory.

Due to the large volume of data they manage, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are perfect targets for cyber attackers. University networks are open in design, decentralized and multi-user, making them vulnerable to cyber-attacks. The purpose of this research paper was to identify which is the recommended cyber security strategy and how comprehensive are these studies, within HEIs. The method proposed by Kitchenham was used, focused on the information community. Thus, the following results can be communicated: researchers recommend their own security strategies, because the standards analysed in the papers are not oriented on HEIs, and require important adjustments to be implemented. Most scientific papers do not describe risk management process. The implementation phases are also insufficiently analysed. The functions that the strategy addressed by HEIs should fulfill include identification, protection and detection. The validation methods used in the preimplementation and post-implementation phases are case studies and surveys. Most researchers recommend as final cyber security strategy IT Governance and security policies. The field of research has proved to be very interesting, the researches could contribute to the creation of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy, focused on the specifics of HEIs, efficient, easy to implement and cost-effective.

The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly changed the way higher education institutions (HEIs) operate around the world. Distance learning has become the unique opportunity that the process further education in conditions where most economic activities were put on hold. To ensure the quality of distance learning have been implemented and used extensively online learning platforms, applications, video conferencing and cloud computing facilities in HEIs. However, this has increased the threats to information security, so that in 2020, in the field of education in general, and HEIs in particular, the number of cyber-attacks has increased, which has led to significant financial losses but also to activity interruption and theft of personal data or intellectual property. In order to identify the biggest threats of the 2020 year, for HEIs, several security reports and scientific articles related to the studied field were analyzed, in order to identify the most common security threats. As a result, of the research conducted, the top Cyber threats of HEIs are: malware attacks, DoS / DDos attacks and phishing attacks. Securing university networks in 2020 was a challenge for specialists in this field.

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have always been the target of cyber attacks due to the information assets they hold. The move to online study as a result of restrictions imposed in the spring of 2020 has led to increased cyber security threats to academia due to the vulnerabilities of online learning platforms and video conferencing applications. The hypothesis of this paper was that Moldovan Higher Education Institutions had to face cyber security challenges similar to international higher education institutions, through the empirical study, the use of the questionnaire-based survey to collect quantitative data from stakeholders of the institutions. The results of the survey conducted between September and November 2020, showed that HEIs in Moldova are targeted by cyber attacks as well as international ones and the nature of threats is mostly the same, namely: malware, phishing and DoS attacks.