Move over, healthcare industry, hackers have a new easy target: our nation’s schools.
Dozens of school districts have been hit by hackers this year alone. It’s the new easy target, as most school systems haven’t felt the need to worry about cybersecurity up to now. Most teachers and administrators aren’t very aware of cybersecurity practices, making techniques like phishing attacks more successful.
The school systems have also tended to buck the FBI’s advice not to pay ransoms in ransomware cases, figuring it’s easier to pay and get things back on track than to try to work around it. People are also pretty leery of having student information made available to the public. Both of these have made attacking schools very profitable.
The best way for school systems to stay ahead of the game is to make sure employees have proper cybersecurity awareness training.