Cybersecurity in Public Schools

I came across this article in Forbes: It’s Time To Solve K-12’s Cybersecurity Crisis. In this article, the disclosed 160 cybersecurity incidents in K-12 during the summer months of 2019, a 30% rise compares to the year 2018. “47% of K-12 organizations are making cybersecurity their primary investment, yet 74% do not use encryption.” and ” 93% of K-12 organizations rely on native client/patch management tools that have a 56% failure rate, with 9% of client/patch management failures never recovered.”

With the limited resources, budget and funding constraints, the numbers and trends in this article come with little surprise. In addition, the article continues to look into the current technology landscape in the school districts, 94% of them have high-speed internet and 82% of them provide students with school funded devices. The trend has been on the rise since 2016.

With all the troubling findings, the article does mention some of the appropriate approaches public schools can take towards resolving the issue, ” this is not something that can be achieved by simply spending more money… especially when that money comes from public funds. The questions they each need to be asking are if they have the right foundational security measures in place, and whether the controls they have already invested in are working properly. Without key foundational elements of a strong and resilient security approach in place – things like visibility and control, it becomes nearly impossible to protect your students, your data, and your investments.”