ICIT Virtual Briefing | Cyber Snow Days: 3 Considerations for School Systems When Building Their Cybersecurity Strategy

Schools educate our nation's future so school administrators must navigate numerous challenges outside their control. With a reported 67 million malware attacks against education institutions during a typical 30-day stretch*, one major challenge is that K-12 institutions easy targets for cybersecurity attacks. These attacks have risen since the Covid-19 pandemic forced remote learning, and a new form of highly evasive adaptive threats (HEAT) using multi-vector attacks has arisen as a primary source of these offenses. Although most students are back in the classroom, the cyberattackers aren’t slowing down their attempts to infiltrate district networks.

In September 2022, in a joint statement, the FBI, CISA, and MS-ISAC warned that cyberattacks against school districts would continue to rise. The statement continued, "School districts with limited cybersecurity capabilities and constrained resources are often the most vulnerable; however, the opportunistic targeting often seen with cyber criminals can still put school districts with robust cybersecurity programs at risk."

Our panelists are:

• Andi Welch, Cybersecurity Strategist, Menlo Security 
• More panelist to be announced soon

Session Outcomes:

• Take-aways from recent attacks and why school systems are targeted
• Types of attacks and opportunities for decreasing vulnerabilities
• Ideas for developing an action plan to maximize cybersecurity resources and mitigate risks