Education is top target for cyberattacks

guest · Aug 14, 2019

Education is top target for cyberattacks
August 14, 2019
https://betanews.com/2019/08/14/education-cyberattacks/

The education sector has become one of the most sought after targets for cybercriminals, according to the latest report from Malwarebytes Labs.

In the first half of 2019, the top three largest categories of threats identified among education institutions' devices are adware (43 percent), Trojans (25 percent) and backdoors (three percent). However, ransomware dropped to less than one percent in this period -- though it was higher both before and after the study.

The Emotet, TrickBot and Trace Trojans have been particularly active in education, with the three representing nearly half of all Trojans detected (44 percent) and more than 11 percent of all compromises in the six month period.

"Emotet and Trickbot increased across every industry but grew at an accelerated pace in education," Wendy Zamora the editor in chief at Malwarebytes says.
The East Irondequoit Central School District, located in New York, is a prime example, having suffered a critical Emotet Trojan outbreak that a legacy endpoint security provider failed to stop. The Emotet Trojan ran rampant across the district's endpoints infecting 1,400 devices and impacting network operations across the district.
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Malwarebytes: Trojans, ransomware dominate 2018–2019 education threat landscape

guest · Nov 14, 2019

Indian education institutions hit hard by hackers: Report
Education domain is one of the most “at-risk” industries in India
November 13, 2019
https://www.nationalheraldindia.com...ation-institutions-hit-hard-by-hackers-report

Education domain is one of the most "at-risk" industries in India, with the sector accounting for more than 30 per cent of cyber threats targeting enterprises in the country between July and September 2019, a new report from Seqrite, the enterprise arm of IT security firm Quick Heal Technologies, said on Wednesday.

Between July and September 2019, Seqrite detected and stopped more than 38 million cyber threats, including ransomware, malware, virus/worm infectors, crypto-jacking and exploit-based attacks.
This marks an increase of four million and 10 million over the number of threats detected in Q2 2019 and Q1 2019, respectively.
It also marked a massive year-on-year increase of 12 million over the corresponding numbers in Q2 2018, which saw 26 million threats stopped by Seqrite.
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Seqrite: Quarterly Threat Report Q3 - 2019
(PDF - 1.10 MB): https://www.seqrite.com/documents/en/threat-reports/seqrite-threat-report-q3.pdf

Observations
• The education industry had the maximum malware detections with over 30% of the total detections.
• The Education industry saw the maximum attacks of the malware W32.Brontok.Q at 0.12 million hits.

Unlike last quarter where we saw the manufacturing sector to be the apple of the eye for cyber attackers, this quarter, maximum attacks were directed towards the Education sector.
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guest · Jun 1, 2020

Hackers are targeting the education sector
June 1, 2020
https://www.itpro.co.uk/security/hacking/355858/hackers-are-targeting-the-education-sector

The education sector has become an attractive target for threat actors, according to Cyware. In a time when schools are cutting budgets nationwide, many districts have had difficulty investing in cybersecurity tools to prevent ransomware attacks. Plus, students are no stranger to risky online behavior, giving hackers another means to infiltrate a school’s network.

Ransomware has gained quite the foothold in the education sector too, as it’s responsible for 80% of malware-related incidents in the education sector, per Verizon’s analysis.
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While these attacks could be combated, doing so is easier said than done. Most schools lack team members dedicated to cybersecurity, according to Keith R. Krueger, chief executive of the Consortium for School Networking.
Additionally, many schools can’t keep up to date on the latest hacking techniques and trends. Unfortunately, until the education sector invests in proper cybersecurity measures, hackers will continue to wreak havoc on their systems.
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guest · Aug 10, 2020

Back to School: Why Cybercriminals Continue to Target the Education Sector
August 3, 2020
https://ke-la.com/back-to-school-why-cybercriminals-continue-to-target-the-education-sector/

Just a few of the major headlines regarding the education sector have looked like this over the last couple of months:
Blackbaud Hack: Universities Lose Data to Ransomware Attack
The University of California Pays $1 Million Ransom Following Cyber Attack
University of York Discloses Data Breach, Staff and Student Records Stolen

The past year has seen a rise in the amount of education-related institutions that have been affected by cyberattacks.
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A Look into Educational Institution Attempts and Attacks
From large databases posted for sale, to remote admin access available on auto shops, and ransomware negotiations, institutions in the education sector have seen heaps of different threats and potential attacks.
Just last week, analysts at KELA noticed two university databases being sold on an underground forum – one pertaining to a London-based college, and the other to the university in California – both sold by the same actor, “Neversec.”

At other times, we’ve seen universities being targeted as part of an attempted larger attack.
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Key Takeaways
The supply chain of organizations, though sometimes overlooked, can offer threat actors the perfect entry point into organizations. As seen in the ongoing weekly occurrences, institutions in the education sector are surely a target for many cybercriminals. These institutions should leverage advanced threat intelligence technologies to monitor their assets in real time, to ensure that they’re maintaining a reduced attack surface and catching any potential threats at an early stage.
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guest · Oct 29, 2020

Education Sector Facing Disproportionate Level of Spear-Phishing Attacks
October 29, 2020
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/education-disproportionate-spear/

Educational institutions are being disproportionately targeted by spear-phishing attacks, according to a new study by Barracuda Networks.

The security firm’s latest Threat Spotlight analysis found that in the period from June to September 2020, over 1000 schools, colleges and universities faced more than 3.5 million spear-phishing attacks.
More than four in 10 (41%) of all attacks targeting education were spear-phishing, according to the analysis, with 28% scamming attempts and 3% related to extortion.

Spear-phishing attacks dropped off in July and August when schools were closed, and were at their highest in June and September: 11% and 13% higher than average, respectively.
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Michael Flouton, VP email protection for Barracuda Networks, commented: “Cyber-attackers have come to understand that education institutions don’t often have the same level of security sophistication as in other organizations, and therefore, they will send carefully crafted email messages designed to trick unknowing and untrained victims into leaking personal or confidential information, such as login credentials, student records, or payment information.
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Barracuda: Threat Spotlight: Spear-phishing attacks targeting education sector

Attackers also customize their malicious email addresses using terms like ‘principal,’ ‘head of department,’ ‘school,’ and ‘president’ to make them look and sound more convincing.
Compromised EDU accounts used as launch pads for email attacks
Barracuda researchers also analyzed malicious email messages that were sent from potentially compromised internal accounts.

When looking at the total number of malicious messages (both inbound and outbound) for all organizations, our analysis found that around 1 in 4 messages detected were sent from internal email accounts. This percentage was significantly higher for education sector, with 57% of malicious emails sent from internal accounts. This means accounts in the education industry were used to send more attacks than they received.
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guest · Nov 9, 2020

7,500 educational organizations hacked, access being sold on Russian hacker forums
November 5, 2020
https://cybernews.com/security/7500...d-access-being-sold-on-russian-hacker-forums/

Network access to 7,500 organizations is being sold by a threat actor on multiple Russian hacker forums. According to the listings posted on October 3 and October 26, these mainly include educational organizations. However, the package also appears to include access to corporate networks from other verticals, such as entertainment and the bar industry.

The seller offers “convenient access” to the 7,500 compromised networks located in the USA, Canada, and Australia via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and claims to be the sole cybercriminal in possession of the network access. The advert has been posted on at least two Russian hacker forums. The access is sold via an auction, with the initial bid for the entire package starting at 25 BTC (roughly $330,000) and the “Buy now” option at 75 BTC (about $1,000,000).
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Between the sharp rise in attacks targeting RDPs, the surprising growth of the ransomware “industry,” and the overall surge of cybercrime over the past several years, organizations now have a rapidly dwindling supply of excuses for getting their networks compromised due to ancient vulnerabilities, which is the direct result of not keeping their systems up to date.
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guest · Nov 9, 2020

mood said: ↑

7,500 educational organizations hacked, access being sold on Russian hacker forums November 5, 2020
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Price Dropped on Hacked Educational RDP Details
November 9, 2020
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/price-educational-rdp/

Hackers selling network access to 7500 educational establishments have reportedly dropped their asking price.
Reports emerged last week that access was being sold by a threat actor on multiple Russian hacker forums and as well as educational organizations. The package also included access to corporate networks from other verticals, such as entertainment and the bar industry.

In particular, access to the networks via remote desktop protocol was being sold, with the initial bid for the entire package starting at 25 BTC (roughly $330,000) and the buy now option at 75 BTC (about $1,000,000).
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Digital Shadows also confirmed that the threat actor reduced the asking price to BTC 10 (USD 155,300) from BTC 25 (USD 387,000) on November 4, “but this is still a significant amount of money even on these forums, hence why it might be taking longer to sell,” Clark said.

Clark also made the point that whilst the user only registered on the forums relatively recently, they have deposited significant funds into both of their forum accounts, likely in an effort to substantiate their credibility on these forums and justify the legitimacy of their presence.

“Interestingly, they have even sponsored the most recent articles competition on XSS, which indicates they have developed an effective relationship with the administrator on this platform and again highlights their potential prowess,” she said. “Although this does not provide insight into the actual legitimacy of the offering, it likely indicates the vendor is legitimate and credible in their offering.”
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guest · Dec 2, 2020

K12 online schooling giant pays Ryuk ransomware to stop data leak
December 2, 2020
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...giant-pays-ryuk-ransomware-to-stop-data-leak/

Online education giant K12 Inc. has paid a ransom after their systems were hit by Ryuk ransomware in the middle of November.

K12 creates tailored online learning curriculums for students to learn from home while in kindergarten through 12th grade. Over 1 million students have utilized K12 to learn from home rather than in traditional public school environments.
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K12 announced this week that they suffered a ransomware attack in mid-November that caused them to lock down some of their IT systems to prevent the attack's spread.

"In mid-November, we detected unauthorized activity on our network, which has since been confirmed as a criminal attack in the form of ransomware. Upon identifying unusual system activity, we quickly initiated our response, taking steps to contain the threat and lock down impacted systems, notifying federal law enforcement authorities, and working with an industry-leading third-party forensics team to investigate and assist with the incident," K12 told BleepingComputer in a statement.
K12 paid Ryuk ransom to prevent data leak
Sources in the cybersecurity industry have told BleepingComputer that the Ryuk ransomware hit K12 Inc.
It is not known how much was paid, but as part of the payment, K12 was assured by the threat actors that they would not release stolen data.
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DataBreachToday: K12, Online Curriculum Provider, Pays Ransom to Hackers

Impact on K12
K12, which is rebranding itself as Stride Inc. as of Dec. 16, says the attack did not affect its "learning management system" that is uses to deliver educational content to students and host student accounts.

"No data on the [learning management system] was compromised nor has the delivery of services over the LMS been interrupted in any way. Our client schools - charter and district online schools - are still open, operating and secure, as they have been since the start of the pandemic," the company says.
K12 also says its primary corporate systems, including payroll, accounting, enrollment, financial reporting, procurement and shipping, were not accessed by the hackers and have remained operational through this incident.
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guest · Jul 19, 2021

The Education Sector Was the Hardest Hit by Ransomware in 2020, Sophos report
July 19, 2021
https://africabusinesscommunities.c...dest-hit-by-ransomware-in-2020-sophos-report/

The education sector was the hardest hit by ransomware in 2020 with 44% of organizations hit (compared to 37% across all industry sectors). This is according to a new report published by endpoint security leaders Sophos.

The report dubbed “Sophos State of Ransomware in Education 2021,” looks at the extent and impact of ransomware attacks on educational institutions worldwide during 2020.
In the wake of headline-grabbing ransomware attacks impacting education, including the REvil ransomware attack on Kaseya that hit schools in New Zealand, and recent alerts from the FBI and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre warning of spikes in ransomware attacks targeting schools, the research findings confirm the particular vulnerability of educational institutions to this relentless cyberthreat.
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For educational institutions, the financial impact of a ransomware attack in 2020 was crippling. The total bill for rectifying a ransomware attack in the education sector, considering downtime, people time, device cost, network cost, lost opportunity, ransom paid, and more, was, on average, US$2.73 million – the highest across all sectors surveyed, and 48% above the global average

Over half (58%) of the education organizations hit by ransomware said the attackers had succeeded in encrypting their data

“The education sector has long been an attractive target for cyber-attackers,” said Chester Wisniewski, principal research scientist at Sophos. “The budgets for IT and cybersecurity can be very tight, with stretched IT teams battling to protect what is often outdated infrastructure using limited tools and resources, coupled with risky end user behaviors, such as downloading pirated software.
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Sophos: The State of Ransomware in Education 2021

guest · Jul 19, 2021

MAT falls victim to data leak after $8m ransom demand
Cyberattack on Harris cost academy trust more than £500K despite it standing firm against Russian hackers' calls for cash
July 19, 2021
https://www.tes.com/news/mat-falls-victim-data-leak-after-8m-ransom-demand

Data from one of England's most prominent academy chains has been published on the "dark web" after it refused to pay a ransom to hackers who at one point demanded $8 million, it has been revealed.

The Harris Federation, which is responsible for 38,000 pupils across 50 primary and secondary academies in London and Essex, fell victim to a cyberattack in March, when criminals accessed and encrypted, or hid, contents from its IT systems.
Now details have emerged of just how much money was being demanded and how the trust decided to deal with it.
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Russian-based hackers initially demanded $4 million from the trust in exchange for restoring access to "important financial files", as well as "bank statements, credit card details, and information relating to staff", compromising all 50 of its schools, according to a BBC Radio 4 File on 4 report verified by Harris.

The programme reported that the hackers had threatened to release "personal data" on the "dark web". The trust also faced a headache from the temporary loss of crucial education files such as students' coursework.
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guest · Jul 26, 2021

44% of education institutions targeted by ransomware in 2020, survey finds
July 23, 2021
https://edscoop.com/ransomware-education-institutions-sophos/

A recent survey of education IT professionals found that nearly half of all education institutions globally were targeted by ransomware in 2020, with 58% of those saying that cybercriminals succeeded in encrypting their data.

The survey, published this month by the cybersecurity firm Sophos, queried 499 education IT professionals about their organizations’ exposure to ransomware, with 44% of respondents saying they had been hit last year. The survey was part of a broader canvas of 5,400 IT professionals across multiple sectors, with education tying with retail as the industry most-frequently targeted by ransomware actors.
Sophos also found that 33% of the education officials it interviewed said that while they weren’t hit by ransomware last year, they expected to be in the crosshairs in the future; 22% said they weren’t hit in 2020 and don’t expect to fall victim.
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Sophos’ analysis attributed the striking trends in ransomware against education institutions to several familiar factors, including limited budgets and broad user bases that can lack for cyber hygiene.

The Sophos survey also had a warning for the 22% of education IT practitioners who said they don’t expect to be hit by ransomware in the future: “Sadly, this is not true. No organization is safe.”
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guest · Aug 19, 2021

Education sector saw highest volume of cyber-attacks in July
Cybercriminals are exploiting the industry’s rapid shift back to remote learning
August 19, 2021
https://edtechnology.co.uk/cybersecurity/education-sector-highest-volume-cyber-attacks-july/

Data from Check Point Research (CPR) shows that the global education sector saw a rise in digital breaches targeting education institutes last month, with the sector experiencing the highest volume of cyber-attacks in July compared to other industries tracked by CPR.

According to the figures, individual education providers saw an average of 1,739 documented cyber-attacks every week last month – a 29% increase from the first half of 2021.
India, Italy, Israel, Australia and Turkey experienced the highest number of weekly attacks, as well as the biggest percent increases compared to the first half of this year.
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Education was the most targeted sector in more than half of the nations surveyed by CPR, ranking in the top three most-attacked sectors in 94% of the countries analysed.

In terms of region, Asia was impacted most, with education institutes in South Asia experiencing the greatest number of attacks.

“Cybercriminals are looking to capitalise on this year’s back-to-school season,” said Tom Kendrick, security evangelist at CPS.
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Check Point Research: Education sector sees 29% increase in attacks against organizations globally

Check Point Research (CPR) observes a steady increase in the average number of cyberattacks per organization weekly, with the education/research sector showing a higher number of attacks than other sectors

In July 2021, there was a 29% increase in attacks against organizations in the education sector compared to H121

By region, organizations in education/research sector in South Asia most targeted, followed by East Asia and ANZ

By country, Indian education organizations are the most targeted, followed by those in Italy and Israel

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guest · Aug 27, 2021

K-12 schools face escalating cybersecurity challenges
August 26, 2021
https://therecord.media/k-12-schools-face-escalating-cybersecurity-challenges/

Cybersecurity risks facing school districts are escalating as primary and secondary educational institutions have become more dependent than ever on digital systems during the pandemic, an education cybersecurity non-profit warned on Thursday. The security measures in use by school districts haven’t always kept up, leading to real-world education disruptions.

“We’ve seen school districts closed for a week or more responding to cybersecurity incidents,” in some cases schools lose access to systems for weeks or months, Doug Levin, the National Director of the K-12 Security Information Exchange, said during a Webinar hosted by the non-profit information sharing hub Thursday.
Attacks on digital infrastructure in the sector have also led to data being irretrievably lost, identity fraud against school staff and students, as well as trust being lost within educational communities, he added.
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Nation-states and other advanced threats are more likely to target universities or other higher education institutions that may be involved in national security related research, iBoss Vice President of Research and intelligence Jim Gogolinski said during the Webinar.

However, some of the most significant risks to K-12 are the same as other sectors. “Phishing remains a major vector for all types of compromises,” Gogolinski said, for example.
“Ransomware is big,” he also noted.
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guest · Sep 21, 2021

Education sector sees more security incidents and longer fix times
September 21, 2021
https://betanews.com/2021/09/21/education-sector-more-security-incidents-longer-fix-times/

A new report from NTT Application Security shows that last year the education sector saw 408 publicly-disclosed school incidents, including student and staff data breaches, ransomware and other malware outbreaks, phishing attacks and other social engineering scams, plus a wide variety of other incidents.

This is 18 percent more incidents than were publicly-disclosed during the previous calendar year and equates to more than two incidents a day. The sector also has lower remediation rates and a higher than average time to fix.
In education though things look worse. The average time to fix critical and high severity vulnerabilities currently stands at 206 days and the remediation rate for critical vulnerabilities is only 34 percent.
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"The application security statistics for the Education sector indicate a hyper focus among organizations in this sector on a handful of critical web applications and fixing a handful of critical vulnerabilities in those applications," says Setu Kulkarni, vice president, strategy at NTT.

You can get the full report from the NTT site.
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guest · Oct 1, 2021

Educational targets hit by rising cyberattacks in 2021
September 30, 2021
https://venturebeat.com/2021/09/30/educational-targets-hit-by-rising-cyberattacks-in-2021/

Bad actors prioritize elementary schools because they’re underfunded when it comes to cybersecurity staff and systems, and administrators are often impatient to put attacks behind them and resume classes.

According to Sophos’ “The State of Ransomware in Education 2021,” the typical educational institution pays an average $112,435 ransom payment to get data back and networks running again.
Crucial information on the cyber threats to education also comes via an Absolute Software “21/22 Endpoint Risk Report: Education Edition” that found the total number of devices deployed across K-12 environments increased 74% from 2019 to 2020.
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School and enterprise endpoint devices are already crowded with software client conflicts and decay that leave endpoints vulnerable. Conflicting endpoints make IT management and audits particularly challenging.
In short, endpoints continue to be weakened by too many conflicting software agents, ineffective antivirus applications, and OS patches that are long out of date.
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guest · Oct 6, 2021

Audit: Cybersecurity Weak for Many Kansas School Districts
October 6, 2021
https://www.securityweek.com/audit-cybersecurity-weak-many-kansas-school-districts

The report from the Legislature’s auditing agency based its conclusions on a survey sent to the state’s 286 local school districts, with 147, or 51% responding.

The audit said that more than a quarter of the school districts surveyed didn’t have antivirus software on all computers, with figure rising to about a third for districts with 500 or fewer students.
Only 34% of districts said they scanned computers for vulnerabilities at least once a month, while 35% said they never did it, the auditors said.
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The auditors recommended that lawmakers consider directing the State Department of Education to develop minimum cybersecurity standards for school districts.
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guest · Nov 13, 2021

GAO says confusion over responsibilities has left schools vulnerable to cyber attacks
November 12, 2021
https://therecord.media/gao-says-co...has-left-schools-vulnerable-to-cyber-attacks/

Confusion over which government department or agency is responsible for protecting school networks against cyber attacks has left the nation’s K-12 institutions especially vulnerable to ransomware, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

After speaking with officials from schools across the country, the GAO said that they found officials were uniformly unclear about whether upgrading their 2010 cyber security plan fell under the purview of the Department of Education or the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

“Education officials state that the department has not updated the sector plan and not determined the need for sector-specific guidance because CISA has not directed it to do so,” the report said, adding that it had determined that the Department of Education “is responsible for updating its sector plan and determining the need for guidance.”
The confusion, the report said, had essentially allowed updating the cyber security plan to fall through the cracks.
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Cyberattacks against schools have been on the rise. According to a database of publicly reported ransomware attacks maintained by Recorded Future, there were 56 cyber attacks against schools in 2020 and there have already been 77 so far this year. In 2019, there were 62 publicly reported ransomware attacks against schools, compared with just 11 in 2018.

“2019 saw almost three times more incidents than 2018 and 2020 saw a further 18 percent increase over 2019,” they wrote. “These incidents include ransomware attacks on school districts in New Hampshire, Nevada, Arizona, and Maryland.“
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The four Senators urge the Department of Education and DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to work together to update the Department of Education’s cyber security plan for schools. The lawmakers also urged the Department of Education and CISA to determine whether K-12 schools need specific guidance and best-practices to help improve their cybersecurity.
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Government Accountability Office (GAO): Education Should Take Additional Steps to Help Protect K-12 Schools from Cyber Threats

As the COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased use of remote education, K-12 schools across the nation have increasingly reported ransomware and other types of cyberattacks.

Federal agencies offer products and services to help schools prevent and respond to cyberattacks. Are these offerings tailored to current threats?
The Department of Education's plan for addressing risks to schools was issued in 2010 and needs an update to deal with changing cybersecurity risks. We recommended that Education update its plan and determine whether more specific cybersecurity guidance is needed for the education sector.
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guest · Aug 9, 2022

Cyberattacks see 114% increase in last two years on education sector before back-to-school
August 9, 2022

With back-to-school around the corner, Check Point Research (CPR) sees the highest volume of cyberattacks on the education and research sector. Hackers sent the most cyberattacks on the education and research sector every month in 2022 and in 2021, marking a 114% increase these past two years. The shift to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the attack surface and widened the door for hackers to infiltrate school networks. In the month of July, weekly cyberattacks by hackers on education and research organisations are double the number compared to other industries’ average.
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CPR is sharing new data on the trend by region and country.

Latin America saw a 62% increase in cyberattacks in July 2022

Brazil, France and Mexico were the countries that saw the highest increases in cyberattacks

CPR issues over a dozen cyber safety tips for students, parents and schools

Check Point Research (CPR) is seeing the largest volume of cyberattacks on the education and research sector, compared to all other industries.
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Check Point Research: Education sector experiencing more than double monthly attacks, compared to other industries

Highlights:

Education/Research sector worldwide experienced the highest volumes of attacks every month in 2022 and in 2021.

In July 2022, the Education/Research sector shows more than double the number of weekly cyberattacks compared to the other industries’ average.

Latin America has seen the largest increase in weekly cyber-attacks in the month of July 2022 with a 62% increase, compared to July 2021.

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Topping them all, Education and Research still leads as the most targeted industry, with an average of 2,297 attacks against organizations every week in the 1H of 2022, showing a 44% increase compared to the 1H of 2021. In today’s report, we shed some more insights to that sector, and present indepth though alarming numbers.
ANZ is the most attacked region in July 2022
When we break down the numbers to education attacks by region in July 2022, we see that ANZ was the most heavily attacked region with 4,176 attacks per organization every week (7% decrease compared to July 2022), followed by Asia with 4,171 attacks (5% increase), and Europe with 1,861 attacks (6% decrease).
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Brazil sees a 122% increase YoY, Israel sees highest amount of weekly average attacks
Brazil has seen the largest increase in weekly cyber-attacks with a 122% increase compared to July 2021. The next country that suffered the biggest increase in cyber-attacks is France, with a 69% increase YoY.
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guest · Jan 18, 2023

Three-Quarters of UK Schools Have Experienced a Cyber Incident
James Coker, Deputy Editor, Infosecurity Magazine @ReporterCoker - January 17, 2023

Over three-quarters (78%) of UK schools have experienced at least one type of cyber-incident, according to an audit carried out by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the National Grid for Learning (LGfL).
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The analysis was a repeat of an audit conducted in 2019, allowing the authors to review the extent of cybersecurity improvements made in schools in recent years.

Including insights from more than 800 UK schools, the report found that phishing emails sent to staff or staff being directed to fraudulent websites was experienced by 73% of respondents, which compared to 69% in 2019. This was followed by people impersonating their school emails (26% versus 20% in 2019), malware infection, including viruses or ransomware on any network-connected equipment (21% versus 30%) and important information being made unavailable, whether short-term or permanently (18% versus 35%).
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The audit also showcased numerous improvements in security measures in schools. For example, every school surveyed now use firewall protection, 99% use an antivirus solution and 74% use two-factor authentication on their most important accounts.

Cyber-attacks on the education sector have ramped up in the past few years, partly as a result of wider attack surfaces brought about by rapid digital transformation programs.
Commenting on the report, Bernard Montel, EMEA technical director and cybersecurity strategist at Tenable said:

“The education sector has been in attackers’ crosshairs for a number of years now and it's imperative that those tasked with the security of educational institutions take action to strengthen defenses.
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guest · Jan 26, 2023

CISA Provides Resources for Securing K-12 Education System
By Ionut Arghire - January 25, 2023

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) this week published a report detailing the cybersecurity risks the K-12 education system faces, along with recommendations on how to secure it.
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Over the past four years, there have been thousands of cyber incidents involving K-12 institutions, where threat actors targeted school computer systems to deploy ransomware, disrupt access, render systems unusable, and steal sensitive information on students and employees, including financial and medical information, and employee Social Security numbers.

The K-12 Cybersecurity Act of 2021 instructed CISA to review the cyber risks to elementary and secondary school, evaluate challenges schools and school districts face in securing information systems, to provide recommendations on improving the protection of these systems, and to develop an online training toolkit for school officials.
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Discussions with stakeholder groups relevant to the K-12 education community revealed that the majority of them do not have the time or resources to secure information systems and sensitive student and employee records, or to implement cybersecurity protocols.

“Most reported that the breadth of available cybersecurity information—news coverage, conference panels, webinars, and more—only made matters more complicated. Nearly all reported that they needed simplicity, prioritization, and resources targeted to the unique needs and context of K-12 organizations,” CISA’s report reads (PDF).
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According to CISA, “with finite resources, K-12 institutions can take a small number of steps to significantly reduce cybersecurity risk,” such as deploying multi-factor authentication (MFA), patching known vulnerabilities, creating backups, and implementing cyber incident response plans and cybersecurity training programs.
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