The education sector has not traditionally been the first objective of cyber attacks, but criminals are increasingly directing their attention to them, knowing that their new and wide digital infrastructure contains a large amount of confidential information.
In relation to this, Hornetsecury has identified the three deficiencies in cybersecurity that the educational sector currently has: lack of a solid safety infrastructure, greater commitment to immutable storage systems and improvement in awareness between teachers and students.
“The digitalization experienced by the education sector has caused both students and teachers to depend more and more on technology to perform their tasks, manage the progress of students or communicate with them. And this, at the same time, is causing them to begin to store huge volumes of personal and sensitive information, such as telephone numbers, email addresses, social security numbers or even credit card details”Says Daniel Blank, Coo de Hornetsecury.
Cyber attacks in the education sector
The examples of incidents in the education sector are increasingly frequent. In fact, the Powerschool platform recently suffered an attack that allowed hackers to access students, grades, assistance and registration data.
“What is attracting cybercriminals to this sector is also the absence of an appropriate security infrastructure, training programs and the necessary awareness both among students and among teachers. That makes school systems a much more vulnerable objective and attacks are easier for executionR ”, adds Daniel Blank.
Hornetsecury identifies the three deficiencies regarding cybersecurity that the education sector currently has
The three main cybersecurity deficiencies that the company has identified in the educational environment are the following:
- Lack of immutable storage systems so that educational centers can safely save all private and sensitive information.
- Little implementation of Basic cybersecurity measuresincluding advanced detection and response systems, patches management and safe passwords with multifactor authentication (MFA) in all official school accounts.
- Minimum commitment to Regular training, thorough awareness programs and periodic simulations. Thus, students, teachers and the rest of the professionals who work in these centers (including administrative staff) will have access to cybersecurity best practices, acting as “human firewalls.”
Cybersecurity training must be applied in an integral way, but it is important to take into account the peculiarities of the different audiences, which require personalized training approaches. “For example, teachers who regularly use school devices usually have the most up -to -date software and private connection protection systems, but their contact information is usually publicly available on the websites of schools, which makes them high -risk objectives”, Concludes Daniel Blank.“At the same time, parents and guardians should also receive training to help their children understand the dangers they face and alert if any suspicious activity occurs”
