Cybersecurity has always been an area of concern across all types of business, but a few have been more frequent topics than others, such as financial institutions and healthcare providers. Now, with so many schools online in non-traditional instruction from home over virtual video conferencing platforms for the past year, the concern for issues has moved to the world of education. People Matters brought this interesting information to our attention in their article, “5 cybersecurity tips for the education sector.”
One common security threat is phishing. Unfortunately, with the large user base of students, teachers, assistants, parents and staff combined with the general lack of awareness about sophisticated techniques and overall anxiety regarding this new setup and the health concerns, phishing attacks have been more successful in this industry.
Once the hacker successfully intrudes into the network using phishing, they launch other malicious techniques such as ransomware, credential theft and sensitive data theft. They can roam freely inside the network because they mimic the behavior of students and privileged users such as teachers and IT admins to move laterally.
Fighting against cyberattacks takes a comprehensive and holistic approach from everyone in the cycle.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
