Future’s So Bright

Well, I’m heavenly blessed and worldly-wise,
I’m a peeping-tom techie with x-ray eyes,
Things are going great, and they’re only getting better,
I’m doing alright, getting good grades,
The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades,
I gotta wear shades — The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades lyrics by Timbuk 3

Despite the bright future anticipated for students in K-12 and at university, Venture Beat points out that other people are joining students this year — cybercriminals.

Cyber threats loom large this year. Digital transformation goes hand-in-hand with the responsibility to take action to protect the personal information of students, parents, teachers, and staff.

Security vendor PurpleSec found that education was ranked last in cybersecurity preparedness out of 17 major industries. That same report also identified close to 500 cybersecurity incidents involving education institutions in 2020 alone.

Educational IT leaders often do not have the appropriate resources or budget to protect against cyberattacks, making them soft targets to bad actors. Nevertheless, IT leaders need to know where and how sensitive information is stored, network configuration, manage and log user access privileges, and confirm proper data handling procedures.

With an IT environment in transition during the pandemic, it is difficult for educational institutions to enforce data ownership security protocols while building redundancies, making them susceptible to DDoS attacks, SQL injection, phishing, ransomware, and password attacks.

The human factor plays an important part role in the educational environment — in-person or remote. Let’s ensure that the students, teachers, schools, colleges, and universities have the brightest future by providing them with basic cybersecurity awareness training.

Featured image (top) by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay