Cybercrime Alert: Urgent Notice for Superintendents

Cybercriminals are attacking schools at an alarming rate. Malicious actors are exposing personally identifiable information, demanding millions of dollars of ransom, and districts are losing valuable time and money before they are able to regain control of their systems.

Threats and phishing attacks continue to become more sophisticated and difficult to spot.

“It is imperative that your staff is not only aware of these heightened attacks on the education community, but know how to stop the attack, and report it appropriately,” says Amy Guilford, Chief Program Administrator of the Property/Casualty Pool. “Early detection is the key — alerting your IT team right away gives them a better chance at shutting down the threat and minimizing damage.”

The first step for every district is to consider subscribing to a training entity, like KnowBe4 — an on-demand security awareness cyber training program. SET SEG members receive a significant discount on the highly affordable subscription. It is one of the best lines of defense you can deploy to prevent a cyber event at your district.

If an incident does occur, contact your SET SEG Account Executive immediately to deploy our team of legal and forensic specialists.

PROTECT YOUR DISTRICT IMMEDIATELY

EDUCATE:

Conduct ongoing security awareness training – sign up for KnowBe4, or another security training, to help your staff spot and stop these attacks.

SEPARATE:

Establish policies – only allow district-issued computers onto district-owned networks.

MITIGATE:

Backup data offline – keep a secure offsite copy of your information or remove any online backups from the main network.

Deploy a password management tool – utilize Multi-Factor Authentication to require individuals to verify their identities prior to logging into a system.