https://www.wired.com/story/schools-already-struggled-cybersecurity-then-came-covid-19/
By Lily Hay Newman
Security
Wired.com
July 1, 2020
THIS TIME LAST year, Jaggar Henry was enjoying the summer like so many
other teens. The 17-year-old had a job, was hanging out with friends on
the weekends, and just generally spending a lot of time online. But then,
at the end of July, Henry combed his hair, donned a slightly oversized
Oxford shirt, and appeared before his school district's board in Polk
County, Florida—one of the larger school districts in the US—to outline a
slew of security flaws he had found in its digital systems. His
presentation was the culmination of months of work and focused on software
used by more than 100,000 students.
Those vulnerabilities have been fixed, but Henry, who now works full time
on education technology, says that his experience illustrates the
challenges facing school districts across the United States—and a problem
that's grown more acute in the wake of Covid-19.
The coronavirus pandemic has had major cybersecurity implications around
the world. Tailored phishing attacks and contact-tracing scams prey on
fear and uncertainty. Fraudsters are targeting economic relief and
unemployment payments. The stakes are higher than ever for ransomware
attacks that target health care providers and other critical
infrastructure. For businesses, the transition to remote work has created
new exposures and magnified existing ones.
School districts in the United States already had significant
cybersecurity shortcomings. They often lack dedicated funding and skilled
personnel to continuously vet and improve cybersecurity defenses. As a
result, many schools make basic system setup errors or leave old
vulnerabilities unpatched—essentially propping a door open for hackers and
scammers. Schools and students also face potential exposure from
third-party education technology firms that fail to adequately secure data
in their platforms.
[...]
--
Subscribe to InfoSec News
https://www.infosecnews.org/subscribe-to-infosec-news/
Follow InfoSec News on Twitter
https://twitter.com/infosecnews_
Follow InfoSec News on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/infosecnews/
