Cybersecurity experts warned that the next major higher education breach is likely to originate off-campus through third-party vendors rather than directly through campus networks. Identity Theft Resource Center President James Lee argued that supply chain compromises exploit common software and cloud dependencies shared across institutions. The warning points to recent patterns: the Canvas incident exposed more than 3.5 TB of data across thousands of U.S. institutions, while reporting also described a ShinyHunters-linked exploitation involving an Oracle human-resources and payroll program used by institutions. Together, the cases reinforce the likelihood that institutions will face cascading exposure if a single vendor becomes the weak link. Lee said cabinets-level leadership needs to treat cybersecurity as a governance and procurement issue, emphasizing due diligence on third-party systems and policies, not just staff training and expensive security tooling. For higher education executives, the operational takeaway is to tighten vendor risk management, map shared dependencies, and pre-plan incident response across connected enterprise systems.