Security News > 2024 > June > No summer break for cybercrime: Why educational institutions need better cyber resilience

I'm not just talking about cybersecurity education in schools shaping the technical workforce of the future - America's schools themselves are prime targets for cybercrime today.

With risks such as student data getting leaked on the dark web, school districts' reputations getting tarnished by ransomware mishandlings, and the potential of any single attack to not only disrupt classes for days or weeks but also threaten the livelihoods of our youth, the stakes are too high to ignore the cyber resiliency of our school system.

As the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency puts it, American schools are "Target rich, cyber poor."

Improved visibility around endpoints is key to improving IT security in schools: With a better look into what laptops, desktops, servers, and software exist in a school's ecosystem, IT teams can understand the security, ongoing operations, and potential vulnerabilities at hand.

Barnaby School District in Canada found 9,000 endpoints in their ecosystem after incorporating an endpoint management solution, which is 2,000 more endpoints than they previously thought they had. Let's look at higher education as another example.

In addition to improving general data hygiene and backups, endpoint visibility, and efforts to manage access to networks through tactics like multi-factor authentication and principles of least privilege, schools need a plan in place for when an attack occurs.

News URL

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2024/06/05/educational-institutions-cyber-resilience/