Cybersecurity Challenges In The Academic Libraries: Emerging Issues, Risks, Strategies And Institutional Responses

Abstract

Academic Libraries Now Run As Networked Service Environments. Access, And Scholarly Communication, Has Been Enhanced By Integrated Library Systems, Discovery Layers, Institutional Repositories, Licensed Databases, Cloud-based Systems, Remote Authentication Systems, RFID, And Mobile Apps And Research Data Stores. This Same Stack Has Expanded The Attack Surface. Phishing, Ransomware, Credential Theft, Insider Misuse, Cloud Misconfiguration, Unpatched Software, And Compromise Of Vendors Can Close Catalogues, Expose User Records And Stall Teaching Support. This Paper Explores Cybersecurity Issues As A Library And Information Science (LIS) Issue, Not As A Generic Information-technology (IT) Issue. It Uses A Descriptive And Analytical Literature-based Design And Synthesizes Peer-reviewed LIS Research Between The Year 2018-2026 Along With Official Incident Reviews And Governance Instruments Such As NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0, ISO/IEC 27001:2022, Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025, CERT-In Directions, And Professional Privacy Standards. Written Security Policies Exist In The Literature But Are Often Extremely Difficult To Implement, Awareness Is Inconsistent Among Staff, And Incidents Such As The British Library's Ransomware Attack In 2023, Which Used A Technical Failure To Cause Months Of Outages In Services And Compromise Confidentiality, Have Occurred. As Per The Paper, An Original Conceptual Model, The “Feedback-driven Policy” Is Proposed. Integrated Cybersecurity Risk And Institutional Preparedness Framework For Academic Libraries (ICRIP-AL). The Framework Is A Literature-based Proposal And Has Not Been Validated By Empirical Research.

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