Cybersecurity in Higher Education: Different Approaches in the German Federal States to Support Universities in Defending Against Cyber-Attacks

6 pages•Published: November 6, 2025

Harald Gilch, Maren Lübcke and Mathias Stein

Abstract

For some years, universities in Germany and worldwide have increasingly become the target of cyber-attacks, and they are trying to prepare for them through projects and initiatives. The German federal states ("Länder"), which are responsible for the universities, are reacting to this in very different ways. The strategies and approaches of the state governments to support the universities range from “extensive autonomy and self-responsibility for IT and cybersecurity” (autonomy strategy) to a “state-wide strategy and joint financial and organizational support” (network strategy). Most federal states pursue a network strategy, with large states such as Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg having already adopted this approach some time ago and established corresponding programs. Other federal states such as Lower Saxony, Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate have now also set up state-wide programs to support universities in a network. However, there are some federal states that rely on the independence and self-responsibility of the universities.
The HIS-Institute for Higher Education Development (HIS-HE) has examined the various strategies and approaches in the German ministries of science and higher education. The results of this study supplement the recommendations for dealing with cyber-attacks at universities, which HIS-HE presented at the EUNIS 2024 conference in Athens.

Keyphrases: cyber attack, cybersecurity, german länder, germany, governmental measures, ministry of higher education

In: Laurence Desnos, Raimund Vogl, Lazaros Merakos, Carmen Diaz, Janina Mincer-Daszkiewicz and Stuart Mclellan (editors). Proceedings of EUNIS 2025 annual congress in Belfast, vol 107, pages 256-261.

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/HHvx
	https://doi.org/10.29007/frl9

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{EUNIS2025:Cybersecurity_Higher_Education_Different,
  author    = {Harald Gilch and Maren Lübcke and Mathias Stein},
  title     = {Cybersecurity in Higher Education: Different Approaches in the German Federal States to Support Universities in Defending Against Cyber-Attacks},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of EUNIS 2025 annual congress in Belfast},
  editor    = {Laurence Desnos and Raimund Vogl and Lazaros Merakos and Carmen Diaz and Janina Mincer-Daszkiewicz and Stuart Mclellan},
  series    = {EPiC Series in Computing},
  volume    = {107},
  publisher = {EasyChair},
  bibsource = {EasyChair, https://easychair.org},
  issn      = {2398-7340},
  url       = {/publications/paper/HHvx},
  doi       = {10.29007/frl9},
  pages     = {256-261},
  year      = {2025}}

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