Jisc, the non-profit organisation devoted to delivering digital infrastructure and shared services across the UK’s higher education sector, has resigned an updated cyber threat intelligence sharing agreement with its counterparts from across the English-speaking world.
The Global Cyber Threat Sharing Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) brings together Australia’s AARNet, Canada’s CANARIE, REN-ISAC and OmniSOC in the US, and for the first time New Zealand’s REANNZ, with the intention of enhancing collective resilience across the research and education sector.
“The cyber threat landscape is constantly evolving, and attackers do not respect international borders. AI is also lowering the barrier to entry for would-be attackers,” said Heidi Fraser-Krauss, CEO of Jisc.
“We are committed to work together in the long term to defend research & education globally. Through rapid sharing of threat intelligence, each partner shares in defending theirs and each others’ members and customers.”
The partnership was initially established to support coordinated cyber defences across borders by enabling the exchange of timely, actionable, sector-specific threat intel among the participants to support the unique needs of the higher education and research community, with the ultimate aim of reducing the impact of cyber attacks in the field.
It sets out clear safeguards for data confidentiality, and handling, enabling participants to work confidently while protecting their own institutional and operational integrity.
“Cyber threats facing the research and education sector are global in nature and demand a coordinated global approach,” said Mike Tremblay, president and CEO of CANARIE.
“By renewing this agreement, we are strengthening a trusted network that enables partners to appropriately share timely, actionable threat intelligence and support one another in protecting the people, research, and infrastructure that drive innovation around the world.”
Expansion
The addition of New Zealand’s REANNZ to the collective is set to further enhance the scheme’s global coverage and deepen collaboration across national research and education networks.
The partners said they hoped their model could one day mature into a global collaborative standard.
Research and education has always been an international endeavour, and cyber security needs to work the same way. Joining this agreement gives REANNZ and the organisations we support access to a trusted community of peers who are facing many of the same challenges,” said Amber McEwen, CEO of REANNZ.
“By sharing knowledge and intelligence responsibly, we can strengthen our collective resilience and help ensure researchers, educators and students can continue to collaborate with confidence across borders.”
Universities at risk
Research bodies and universities have access to a wealth of data ranging from personally identifiable information on students to sensitive intellectual property (IP), which makes them a valuable target for threat actors, and means they are frequently targeted.
A recent breach at the University of Nottingham saw 40GB of data relating to almost half a million students stolen by the ShinyHunters collective following the successful compromise of a zero-day vulnerability in Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise PeopleTools.
Earlier in 2026, an attack on Infrastructure Holding’s Canvas learning management system (LMS) saw universities breached around the world, with 160 UK-based institutions thought to have been affected, according to Britain’s Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC).
