A wave of cyberattacks against top research universities has exposed vulnerabilities in campus IT systems and highlighted how higher education’s mix of open networks, sensitive research data and decentralized IT governance attracts sophisticated attackers. Reports from multiple institutions show intrusions affecting administrative systems, research data and campus services. Security experts say higher-education institutions often lack the centralized funding and staffing to match the defensive posture of corporate counterparts and that patchwork governance slows coordinated responses. The targets include privileged intellectual-property repositories, donor systems and research on commercially valuable topics such as AI and biomedicine. University leaders and trustees are being pushed to prioritize cyber budgets, incident-response planning, and board-level oversight of cybersecurity to protect research continuity, compliance and student data privacy.