Everyone seems to be aware of the massive problem that is ransomware, but not everyone knows how harshly this issue has impacted our schools. Everything from a high school student in Miami who forced the cancellation of classes to The University of Massachusetts breach last June. And this has all occurred as schools have continued to struggle with remote and hybrid learning during a global pandemic.
In March 2021, the FBI issued a warning about an increase in PYSA ransomware targeting education institutions in 12 U.S. states and the United Kingdom. And that’s just the beginning.
The K-12 Cyber Resource Center found that the attacks against schools in 2020 marked an 18 percent increase from the prior year, and given what we’ve seen in the past year, it’s seeming likely that 2021 will top that by a country mile.
Organizations today understand that the cost associated with the fallout of a successful attack greatly outweighs the cost and effort associated with attack prevention. Therefore, in education cybersecurity and beyond, investing in comprehensive cybersecurity strategies not only protects sensitive data and infrastructure but can also potentially help greatly reduce costs down the line.
However, at the same time, school districts face substantial budget constraints, making it difficult to address the massive and rapidly growing problem of cybersecurity risks. And speaking of that growing problem, the fact is that the threat landscape has proliferated and continues to proliferate so greatly that humans alone cannot tackle it all.
It used to be the case that cyberattacks were only as fast as the humans who executed each step in an attack. These manual processes once provided a viable chance of catching an exploit before it caused major damage.
Now, however, cybercriminals are likewise capitalizing on digital innovation, automation, and applying artificial intelligence to many of their tactics. This has enabled them to quickly create more sophisticated, multi-vector attacks that can be carried out at machine speeds. So it only makes sense for education IT and security teams to respond by using AI and automation as part of their cybersecurity efforts.
Cybercriminals will target any vulnerability they can find, with no regard for the populations their attacks will affect. The education sector’s vulnerability has increased significantly over the past year, leading to a predictable increase in attacks. Many districts are still recovering from these attacks, even as they prepare for the return of a more “normal” school year this fall.
Automation and AI/ML can play a huge role for education organizations, providing a way to augment their typically small IT teams. These technologies enable security tools to match the speed of attacks and teams to get out ahead of attackers to proactively keep their schools safe.