Cyber Security for Schools – Why the Education Sector is a Prime Target for Hackers and How to Protect your Community

In this workshop, delegates will learn the types of cyber attacks faced by schools and how to mitigate against them. Attendees will learn the fundamentals of carrying out an internal Cyber Vulnerability Assessment (CVA) in school, set to the backdrop of the increasing regularity of cyber attacks in education.

Background

“In the past 30 days, more than 4.7 million malware incidents were detected in the education industry broadly worldwide, according to Microsoft’s Global Threat Activity tracker—more than 60 percent of all the corporate and institutional malware incidents reported during that time.” 

Source: Microsoft Global Threat Activity

Operationally, schools are critically dependent on technology and online services to function. Schools now hold vast amounts of confidential and sensitive data on their operations, finances, pupils, parents and staff. Technology often also provides remote and direct access to building control systems. All data needs to be available safely, securely and intact on demand.

Many schools make basic system setup errors or leave old vulnerabilities unpatched – essentially propping a door open for hackers and scammers. Schools and students also face potential exposure from third-party technology firms. The pandemic amplified these risks, as schools around the world transitioned to distance learning.

There are a variety of digital threats schools face. It is essential that school leadership are aware and understand that Cyber Security risks have strategic implications. Poor Cyber resilience can affect a school’s ability to teach, safeguard its pupils, damage its reputation, breach legal obligations and undermine its short and long-term goals and objectives. Recent high profile attacks on the education sector emphasise again the need for organisations in the sector to protect their networks to prevent ransomware attacks.  

There are a variety of vulnerabilities that affect educational organisations which make them the number one target for hackers globally. Cyber attacks typically use technologies that do not require in-depth technical knowledge, which this workshop will demonstrate.

In this workshop, delegates will learn the types of cyber-attacks faced by schools and how to mitigate against them. Attendees will learn the fundamentals of carrying out an internal Cyber Vulnerability Assessment (CVA) in school, set to the backdrop of the increasing regularity of cyber attacks in education. 

21st Century Schools face a variety of threats and it is critical that school leadership in partnership with technology leadership strategically plan to mitigate these threats in order to provide for a safe and secure learning environment. 

In this workshop school teams will learn:

• The impact of recent attacks on different organisations globally
• The types of attacks that schools face and who is responsible for them
• Some recent examples within the education sector
• How would a hacker carry out research on a target/school and how educational institutions can carry out checks to ensure they are not vulnerable
• How a hacker would identify vulnerabilities and proceed to initiate an attack by way of a live walkthrough & simulation 
• A range of CVA tools schools can use internally before turning to external consultants
• What checks should be conducted internally before engaging with external CVA consultants
• Do schools need to fix all vulnerabilities that are identified in a CVA
• How to select external consultants when conducting a CVA
• How and why this links to data protection compliance
• What understanding should senior leadership have of cybersecurity and how to simplify this for non-IT specialists
• Tips for mitigation

Who should attend:

• School Senior Leaders
• IT Directors
• IT Staff
• Compliance Teams and those with group-level IT and compliance responsibilities