Schools hold a lot of data on both students and staff. Much of this is very sensitive, including contact information. This is information that shouldn’t fall into the wrong hands. However, unfortunately, there’s been a rise in the number of cyber attacks targeting educational establishments. This includes phishing, where people will use a variety of techniques to trick people into sharing information, and ransomware which involves the use of software that can block access to computers until a sum of cash is paid. Neither is ideal.
Schools have a legal obligation to protect the data they hold. There could be serious legal consequences should the data not be protected properly, not to mention the repetitional damage that can occur should information leak.
Luckily, a bit of preparation and education can go a long way toward helping to protect data in schools. We’ll detail how.
1. Educate Staff and Students on Cyber Threats
The best protection against cyber threats is to educate people on the reality of them. The vast majority of cyber threats occur because somebody made a ‘mistake’, whether through downloading bad software, or getting tricked into answering phishing emails and text messages. Educate people, and you’ll cut down on 90% of all cyber threats. This is because most people causing these issues rely on poor education.
2. Use Strong Password Policies
Always ensure that passwords are secure. This means three things:
- Require ‘secure’ passwords. Passwords shouldn’t be single words (can be cracked in mere seconds), but a combination of letters, numbers, and punctuation. Capital letters and lowercase letters should also be used.
- Require regular password changes. Every 6-12 months should be fine.
- If you can implement it, allow for multi-factor authentication. So, when a person inputs their password, they also get a notification through their email/phone that they need to confirm. This ensures that even if somebody discovers their password, they become harder to hack.
3. Secure School Networks
You might need to get your IT team on top of this one. Your school’s computer network should be hidden behind a firewall (which, essentially, blocks out threats). Antivirus software should also be kept up to date. Schools will often need a lot of protection from external threats, since they are huge data targets.
User permissions should also be correctly set. For example, students and teachers shouldn’t be able to change key data on a computer, nor should they be allowed to install software.
The IT team should be constantly monitoring the network for suspicious activity, and stamping out the issue as soon as it occurs.
4. Keep Software and Devices Updated
Software updates aren’t just for adding new features. They are about patching security issues, particularly with operating systems (e.g. Windows).
Therefore, it is essential that you keep all software used on school computers up to date. Make it a routine to update everything (again, a job for the IT department). If anything is not updated in a while, then remove it from the school’s computers and find alternative options. There is a good chance there is a security hole in old software that can lead to your school being hacked.
If software allows for automatic updating, turn that on. It’ll make your job a whole lot easier, since updates will be download and installed exactly when needed.
5. Back Up Data Regularly
You should be automatically backing up all data at least once per week, although ideally you’d do it once per day. This isn’t just for cyber security purposes, it is because you really don’t want a catastrophic event wiping out all your school’s data.
Data should be backed up offline, or to off-site cloud services. Data backups offline mean that hackers can’t access the offline data. Backing up to off-site cloud services (of which there are a few) will have far better security protecting the data than your school could ever dream of having.
Every so often, you’ll need to test your recovery procedures. You want to know that your data is backed up properly, and that you have processes in place that can restore the data.
6. Restrict Access to Sensitive Information
It is essential that you apply the principle of ‘least privilege’ for staff accounts. This, essentially, means that staff members only have access to the information they need access to i.e. what they need to do their job. Nothing more. The least amount of information that they need access to.
Students should be even more restrictive, with the only digital resources they have access to being ones they need for their education.
At all times, user activity should be monitored and audited. This ensures that any issues can be highlighted and handled quickly.
7. Use Secure Communication Tools
Finally, all communication tools should be secure. This means never using services that are unencrypted. You don’t want people snooping on chat logs, after all.
There are a variety of school-approved solutions that have end-to-end encryption. Use them. Make sure that staff and students use nothing else.
Once again, it is also important that your staff are fully trained on how to communicate properly. This means not sharing personal information via these chat channels unless 100% necessary. Proper education should also be given about the safe sharing of documents.
Cyber Security For Schools 101
It is important that you take a proactive approach to school security, not just because you’ve got a legal obligation to ensure that data is properly protected, but it is far cheaper and easier to prevent issues rather than deal with issues when they occur.
Honestly, these tips and tricks are really all you need. Proper staff/student training will work wonders when it comes to cutting down on cyber security threats. Regularly updating software and running a good firewall will help with almost every other one.
Remember, cybersecurity regularly changes. You need new ways to protect your school, so don’t forget to update your security policies and tools regularly to ensure that you always stay one step ahead of any issues.
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