Many districts are small, and may only have a handful of staff for all of their technology operations. Low-Hanging FruitĪlthough school districts are doing a decent job with what they have, they don’t have as many resources to throw at cybersecurity as private corporations do, which can make them look like low-hanging fruit to would-be attackers, says Tim Harper, a former chief technology officer for Seminole Public Schools in Sanford, Florida, and the current administrator-in-residence for Clever, a K-12 digital platform.įor many schools across the country, which require edtech to function, third-party vendors would be better equipped to handle cybersecurity, argues Jim Siegl, senior technologist at the Future of Privacy Forum. “Cyber attacks are a growing problem in schools, and the harms to students and their families are not theoretical,” says Elizabeth Laird, director of Equity in Technology at the Center for Democracy and Technology. The issue isn’t just a matter of inconvenience, but a potential threat to student privacy, especially in the case of digital gradebooks and other student information systems, experts point out. ![]() edtech: K-12 public schools in America spent somewhere between $26 billion and $41 billion annually before the pandemic, according to figures from the nonprofit EdTech Evidence Exchange. The uptick is happening at a time of record spending on U.S. At least 128 school districts have seen repeat attacks. There’s been a five-fold increase in incidents since 2016, with 1,180 reported incidents connected to U.S. And even now, some of the company's other services appear to still be down, according to updates from the company.Ĭyberattacks on schools are on the rise, according to the latest available report from the K-12 Security Information Exchange, a national nonprofit focused on cybersecurity and K-12 schools. Service was out for several weeks, disrupting learning as the schools returned from the holiday break. ![]() As such attacks become more common, schools may need to do more to build their ability to prevent attacks and to hold private vendors to high standards, experts say.Īn “attempted security incident” this month knocked out many of Illuminate Education’s digital services, including an online gradebook, Skedula, and a related parent-focused platform, PupilPath, which are used by New York’s public school system. A recent cyberattack that affected the biggest school district in the country is a reminder of an increase in cybersecurity incidents at schools across the U.S.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |