How bad are cyber attacks for schools right now?

by Joel Cahill

Schools, schools and more schools are getting hit.

How bad are these school cyber attacks?

But how bad is it really?

Checking in with Microsoft - hacks on schools (K-12 and University) currently make up "61 percent of all attacks in the U.S."

That's HUGE! That means MOST attacks right now are targeting schools.

But why?

School districts make easy targets because of the amount of personal data they hold and underfunded cyber security measures. - Matt McMahhon, Gratiot-Isabella Intermediate School District

Easy targets - we are careful to say that. It doesn't mean that school faculty are ignorant. It means cybercriminals have their sights set and are holding down their fully automatic Phishing attack trigger.

School employees have a ton on their plates at the start of every school year. As we all know, those tasks have multiplied this year. With COVID forcing distance learning or hybrid environments, school faculty are becoming superheroes overnight.

Hackers can also target students learning virtually or staff working from home with remote access to their office computer.

Yes, this is an "uh oh" moment for many schools. Adding in hundreds or thousands of student laptops into the mix requires expert network segmentation to maintain security. Still, this is a lot of work.

As our friend Tom Wyant is so well quoted in this article:

The key is educating people about how to use their devices securely.

As school employees transition from ordinary people into superheroes, cybersecurity awareness training is paramount. We simply can't expect teachers to magically be fully aware of cyber risks without consistent training and testing, just like the rest of us!

Cybercriminals make a ton of money from these attacks (check out Hushpuppi if you can handle further disappointment), and we are here to stop that!

The first step is training teams to avoid the initial Phishing email, the ones that an employee fell for at each one of these schools.

Are you ready to take action?
We make it easy to protect your team from attacks just like this one. Find out how to protect your team with INFIMA's Automated Security Awareness platform.

To get a quote, set up a call with our (non-pushy) sales team here!