“Hey, I’m the school principal and I’ve forgotten my password,” the voice said. “Can you help me?”
The call appeared at the help desk in the Beaverton School District in Oregon. Beaverton, a city in Portland’s Metropolitan Region, is home to the Nike factory. Future expansion for semiconductor manufacturingfunded by federal dollars under the Chips Act. Overall, around 40,000 students participate in the district.
Callers were looking for ways around multifactor authentication, a security protocol that requires two forms of identification. The school put it down years ago to prevent attacks. But hackers are more refined and more frequent attempts to break into the system, says Stephen Langford, Beaverton’s chief information officer.
The fraud was frustrating thanks to staff trained security protocols. But that’s part of the trend. Over the past month, the district has received many calls from cybercriminals for information to publish school data. Without constant vigilance, staff want to be helpful, allowing them to hand over sensitive information to lawful scammers. The threat can also get worse. Cool Langford and think about whether AI can change the voice or write more tweaked scripts. That’s something they have to stay ahead.
Doug Levin, national director of the K12 security information exchange, chases money in such a way that anyone who chases the school can get it. Often, it means a terror that comes primarily from Russian cybergangs. For example, an attacker swipes data from the school, then locks the school from the computer, then asks for money to unlock the computer and not release the data. Or sometimes they skip it and focus on the data. If the school doesn’t play the ball, attackers will either sell the data on the dark web marketplace or punish and discard the data online to pick up identity burglars. They also scam school staff through phishing emails to give up access to information or send gift cards, Levin says. Recently, they have also started targeting vendors that work with schools. Because through them, hackers have access to the national school system.
In fact, cyberattacks on schools are happening all over the country. Last year, 82% of K-12 schools reported cyber incidents, Recent estimates. Cybersecurity experts fear that reductions in certain federal programs will threaten them by tearing training and critical security signals to protect student data more closely.
Flying blindness
The district appears to understand the importance of cybersecurity concerns, says Levin of the K12 security information exchange. There are also cybersecurity companies that understand the unique context of the school and offer more affordable pricing for the school. But the hope was that federal involvement would help better educate the risks of taking on school system leaders with technology. This is because supervisors are common with a variety of other concerns, including physical safety, to view cybersecurity as a technical issue. They underestimate the threat, Levin says.
The school is not prepared due to lack of federal support. Research from one association shows that 73% of school edtech leaders say that student data privacy is not listed as part of 17% have not received relevant privacy training with their job descriptions. Many relied on the federal government to develop EDTECH or AI policies.
Some states have urged schools to be more vigilant. But overall, schools don’t have the resources or support they necessarily need. In fact, many school districts don’t even have the ability to take advantage of the support they already offer. Smaller districts tend to rely on third-party support, Levin says.
Under Trump, the federal situation is also becoming more complicated.
Several major advisory groups have been dissolved. The CISA K-12 Cybersecurity Advisory Committee was rejected along with all other Homeland Security Committee Committees. The K-12 Cybersecurity Government Coordination Council of Education is a stakeholder group that collaborates with school-dependent programs, and now appears to have been abolished to its members as well. Formal notices have not been closed, but all activities have been suspended. “We’ve been ghosted essentially,” says Levin, who was involved with the group. Therefore, there is no coordinated communication about school cybersecurity trends, he adds.
The Education and Technology Bureau provided guidance to the district. It was a victim of federal cuts.
One of the remaining sources of federal support is cybersecurity and infrastructure security agencies, which will help schools respond to Dataransamers. However, agents are struggling with cuts and may lose one or moreThe third staff member. There is also a variety of information sharing and analysis centres where schools consult about cybersecurity information and services. But I have this group too Loss of money.
For now, these programs can provide training and clues as to which threats the district should pay attention to. “We’ve seen a lot of experience in the past,” said Jim Cornes, executive director of information technology at Baltimore Public Schools. When one school is attacked, another school gets warned and builds up defenses.
The school finds this encouraging.
In 2020, Baltimore was subjected to a massive cyber attack. At the time, schools across the country were not much coordinated with technology infrastructure. They were operating independently, Cornes says. If they had the resources they are doing now, it would have helped the district set up better safeguards, Cornes said.
More recently, Baltimore Public Schools have received regular email updates from Maryland’s Information Sharing and Analytics Center, as well as two federal programs with uncertainty about the future, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security agencies, and multi-state Information Sharing and Analytics Centers. Email alerts warn which IP addresses are linked to attacks and other important recent security information. Schools can avoid attacks and actively block dangerous emails and IP addresses. The network also offers district training on top security practices.
Cornes fears losing these security benefits.
After the 2020 attack, the Baltimore area shifted its data savings to vendors. But the strategy is not free from danger either. This is because recent violations have been proven at Powerschool, one of the nation’s widest student information systems. After hackers obtained the passwords for PowerSchool employees, they accessed the data for millions of students, investigation Cybersecurity company Cloud Strike. Cornes says Baltimore County public schools were not affected by the violation, but the incident emphasizes that protecting data means ensuring vendors follow best practices.
Reducing cybersecurity protection systems can have broad implications.
“These federal cuts are myopic and can quickly be harmful to students, educators and families,” Keith Kruger, CEO of the nonprofit School Networking Consortium, told Edsurge.
In addition to exposing schools to attack, Kruger argues that reductions can even accelerate educational inequality. Rural areas, schools that primarily serve low-income students, and states that have not yet issued guidance on how to handle EDTECH or AI is at their highest risk. Without federal guidance, these vulnerable districts struggle with everything from protecting school networks to using new technologies ethically and effectively, Kruger says. Wealthy districts can operate better without federal support. These fortunate schools continue to deepen and walk the inequality when outweighing struggling districts.
Certainly uncertain
In Cybersecurity, the district is currently operating in the darkness.
Unlike many other districts, Beaverton has a dedicated cybersecurity team. Nevertheless, it relies on federal information to strengthen its defense. This is because the services provided by MS-ISAC and CISA help Beaverton to identify threats and provide information to better defend against cyber threats.
But they have already lost access to webinars that briefly describe them about the threats that appear across the country, according to Langford. This means staff will dig up information themselves, take time away, and incur additional costs.
It is also unclear whether other important resources will continue.
In particular, districts are finding weekly scans that reveal potential vulnerabilities and identify critical malicious threats, Langford says. These flags IP addresses may be trying to harvest passwords or install malicious software. If a cyber team has that domain, it can be blocked. So, if phishing emails are sneaking up, it won’t work, Langford adds.
But the uncertain future of these and other warning systems means districts like Beaverton are worried about student data being made public. “We now live in the unknown,” Langford says.
