K-12 Schools

The education sector has seen significant cyberattacks in recent years. Ransomware, DDoS, and phishing have often forced educational establishments to close schools and universities while they respond to attacks. A report from the Center for Internet Security (CIS) has found that 82% of K-12 institutions have experienced cyber threats. Around 45% of these threats target human behavior. The sector must take precautions to prevent attackers from disrupting students' education.

The Cyber Threats Targeting Education

The spectrum of cyber threats targets K-12 schools. Worryingly, a report from Microsoft found that schools in the United States are used to test malicious actors' tactics, techniques, and procedures. Microsoft Threat Intelligence data indicates that the education sector is the third-most targeted sector in the United States. Attack types include the following:

Ransomware: This insidious malware encrypts files across a school network, leaving the school unable to function. A report from Malwarebytes found a 70% increase in ransomware attacks targeting the education sector, with attacks targeting K-12 schools surging by 92%.

Data Breaches: Stolen credentials led to unauthorized access to the PowerSchool Student Information System (SIS). The attackers stole sensitive data from 62 million students and 9 million teachers. No ransomware was installed. However, PowerSchool and several school districts were forced to pay ransom to delete the data.

DDoS: Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks can severely impact distance learning. School exam time is often targeted to cause maximum disruption. Even students can become a DDoS threat. A school in Florida was the victim of a student who launched an attack that crashed the entire network of the Pinellas County Schools district.

Phishing: Phishing is often used to initiate cyberattacks, such as ransomware and data theft, by stealing login credentials. Higher education phishing attacks almost entirely use the email channel (96%).

Why are K-12 Schools Vulnerable?

Other Reasons why K-12 Schools are Vulnerable

• Most do not have a full-time employee working as a cybersecurity resource:  A recent study showed that 66% of school districts do not have a full-time cybersecurity role.
• Have tight budgets: Many K-12 schools and districts have tight budgets. They must make hard decisions about what to spend money on, which often means sacrifices of cybersecurity measures.
• Shadow IT: Unsanctioned apps leave security gaps.
• Legacy Infrastructure: Running outdated operating systems such as Windows XP or software that is no longer supported at all, opens security vulnerabilities. 
• Lack of  Security Awareness & Training: For many teachers, there isn’t enough time in the day.  IT staff are stretched thinly across the district supporting everyone and their devices.  Students days are full. This all makes training users to be security conscious extremely challenging.

Email Security for Education

Poor email security in schools can lead to inbound and outbound security issues:

Inbound email: Phishing attacks involve cybercriminals sending emails inviting a user to click on an infected link or attachment. Once the link is accessed, the user is taken to a bogus webpage where they will be instructed to submit credit card or login credentials (thus surrendering their password), for example. Phishing emails can be difficult to detect, but they are becoming increasingly sophisticated and often don't appear malicious.

Outbound email: If cyberattacks have access to staff and student email accounts, they can send hundreds of spam and phishing emails targeting other users within the institution. Even hacking one email account can provide access to a wealth of sensitive information throughout the institution. If an email account associated with your college or school is flagged as sending spam or phishing emails, the school/college IP address can ultimately be blocked.

Email security for schools should use advanced technologies, such as AI, machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and behavioral analytics, to identify and prevent sophisticated phishing attacks.

Spam and Malware Protection in the Education Sector

Spam may seem innocuous, but it can contain inappropriate or offensive subject matter. Spam can also be a prelude to more dangerous phishing attempts. Spam is dangerous and must be prevented alongside phishing attempts.

Advanced anti-spam solutions use AI to identify emerging spam threats, preventing them from entering student and staff inboxes.

Ransomware Protection for the Education Sector

Ransomware is an insidious and highly disruptive threat to K-12 schools. It is often the result of credential theft. Even low-level privileges, like a student account, can lead to cybercriminals having access to a network. Once inside, the attackers can use common tools to escalate these privileges until they have admin access. From there, they can install ransomware. Alternatively, malware-infected email attachments can lead to the direct initiation of ransomware infection.

Email security solutions and content filtering prevent malware. However, these solutions must use advanced technologies, like machine learning, to identify emerging and zero-day malware threats.

Security Awareness Training for Education

Security awareness training and phishing simulation exercises augment email security tools. Security awareness training educates staff and students on identifying and preventing phishing, social engineering, and accidental data exposure.

A few areas that security awareness training covers include the following:

• Shoulder surfing
• Basic data protection best practices
• How to identify social engineering attempts
• Mobile device security
• Good password security and generation
• Common threats and attack strategies
• Phishing simulation exercises

Web Filtering for Schools and Universities

A DNS or web content filter provides the protection needed to prevent cyberattacks and inappropriate content from interfering with students' education. DNS filters protect students, staff, data, and general educational resources from malicious attacks, including malvertising and phishing sites. They also ensure that students do not view inappropriate or harmful content. A DNS filter helps to meet the compliance requirements of CIPA (Children’s Internet Protection Act).

DNS Filters for Chromebooks

Fifty million students and teachers use Chromebooks daily. Chromebooks are internet-ready and provide a seamless experience for staff and students. Chromebooks are affordable for schools on a budget. They require minimal installation and configuration setup, so teachers and students don’t need excessive time or technical skills to begin working with them. However, Chromebooks are not dedicated security solutions. Providing open-access internet browsing can also lead to inappropriate activity among students. Administrators must block inappropriate websites and web applications for cybersecurity protection if students and teachers connect to a school's network. DNS filters that seamlessly integrate with Chromebooks are used to prevent students from navigating to malicious or inappropriate websites. In doing so, these filters ensure compliance with CIPA.

TitanHQ’s Suite of Security Solutions for Education

TitanHQ understands the unique needs of schools and school districts. Our exceptional value and next-generation AI-enabled cybersecurity tools are delivered using a unified cloud platform for easy delivery and management. Our AI-driven email security and web filtering solutions are specifically designed to work with Chromebooks.

Our unified solutions include the following protective capabilities:

• Anti-spam protection
• Anti-phishing prevention
• DNS filtering
• Security awareness training

All solutions utilize AI, machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and behavioral analytics, where appropriate. AI helps to mitigate complex, evasive techniques used in modern cyberattacks.

TitanHQ solutions are CIPA compliant, with comprehensive reporting to evidence compliance. All of our solutions provide comprehensive, work-from-anywhere support. WebTitan OTG (One-the-Go) uses agents to reroute DNS requests through the WebTitan-hosted service, where they are filtered and managed. This provides web filtering and device protection during remote working or traveling.​

Schools and districts have complex environments that must protect minors, making them unique in their security requirements. TitanHQ solutions are designed to be flexible and granular enough to create policies that reflect the complexity of school demographics.

Schools trust TitanHQ because our solutions are:

• Out-of-the-box CIPA-compliance.
• Enforce comprehensive security through Chromebook filtering on-the-go.
• Fully cloud-based, easy to deploy.
• Provide robust email security and phishing protection.
• Enforce age-appropriate filtering policies on a granular basis.

TitanHQ’s comprehensive approach to web filtering and email security for K-12 ensures maximum protection with minimal maintenance.

Sign up for a demo today to get started with TitanHQ Cyber Security for Education.