CoSN2024: Los Angeles Tech Leaders Reveal How They Turned the Table on Hackers mol.doak_fhrr Wed, 04/10/2024 - 12:12 After making headline news for falling victim to a ransomware attack on Labor Day in 2022, Los Angeles Unified School District technology leaders are speaking out. Because LAUSD is the second-largest school district in the country, with more than 600,000 students, the attack was a wake-up call for all of K–12. The incident made it very clear that when it comes to cyber targets, size isn’t the issue. “The bottom line is that, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you're a ..read more

What Is a Rapid Maturity Assessment, and Why Is It Useful for Zero Trust? mol.doak_fhrr Wed, 03/06/2024 - 13:02 Bolstering a school’s cybersecurity can cost a pretty penny, but that could be pennies on the dollar compared with the cost of a breach. According to IBM, the global average cost of a data breach in 2023 was nearly $4.5 million, a 15 percent increase over three years. To combat these threats, the Consortium for School Networking is seeing an increase in schools adopting practices to improve cybersecurity, according to CoSN’s “2023 State of EdTech Leadership” report. “This year, 61 ..read more

3 Key Reasons Why K–12 Schools Must Modernize Their IAM Programs mary.winters Fri, 02/23/2024 - 12:54 Though most schools already have identity and access management programs in place that provide IT leaders with best practices, processes and technologies to manage identities, modernizing an IAM program means moving beyond the technical operations to a more strategic function focused on educational objectives. A modern IAM program brings identity governance, access management and privileged access management together in a unified, cloud-based solution that is built wi ..read more

Q&A: How to Protect Your K–12 Schools from Cybercrime Using the Zero-Trust Model mol.doak_fhrr Thu, 02/01/2024 - 12:00 Marlon Shears has spent more than 20 years working on the IT teams for some of the biggest K–12 districts in the nation. He started out as a software engineer at Los Angeles Unified School District and then moved on to Dallas Independent School District, where he soon became deputy CTO. After three years, he went on to Fort Worth ISD as CIO and now serves as CIO at IDEA Public Schools, headquartered in Texas. Before he transitioned to IDEA, he led his Fort Worth team in s ..read more

Eye on Zero Trust: How to Implement Identity and Access Management in K–12 Schools mary.winters Tue, 01/30/2024 - 14:28 Developed in 2009 by former Forrester Research analyst John Kindervag, the zero-trust security model revolves around the motto “never trust, always verify.” It is an evolving methodology in cybersecurity that governs user access to data and networks. “Zero trust really comes down to: Are you who you say you are, and are you where you are supposed to be?” says Gary Lackey, director of cybersecurity at Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School District in Baytown, Texas ..read more

What Is Zero-Trust Security? Key Principles of the Model mol.doak_fhrr Mon, 01/29/2024 - 12:18 In the face of increasingly intelligent cybercriminals and rising threats, K–12 organizations must protect their networks and online environments from attacks. Cybersecurity remains the top priority for K–12 IT leaders, according to CoSN’s “2023 State of EdTech Leadership” report, with more schools prioritizing training for IT staff and end users last year than in 2022. IBM’s 2023 “Cost of a Data Breach” report ranks social engineering techniques such as phishing scams as one of the top causes of se ..read more

5 K–12 Ed Tech Trends to Follow in 2024 Rebecca.torchia_c7Ks Wed, 12/20/2023 - 13:00 K–12 education is on the precipice of change in 2024. School IT administrators need to be ready to adapt as numerous shifts at the federal level create impacts throughout the education landscape. Affecting many schools’ budgets this year, the final round of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funding expires in September. Many K–12 institutions relied on this funding to sustain new educational technology programs, including providing devices to teachers and students. Additionally, t ..read more

What Are the Privacy Implications of Biometrics in K–12 Schools? mol.doak_fhrr Mon, 12/18/2023 - 12:00 Millions of users have already signed up for Worldcoin, a new tool that aims to provide users with a verified digital identity through iris scans and codes stored on decentralized blockchains. Worldcoin launched in July and was co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman of ChatGPT fame. While Worldcoin is not available for use by anyone under 18, biometric capabilities, such as these and others just on the horizon, are renewing privacy and safety questions in K–12 settings. “Combined with other app ..read more

How to Solve the Cybersecurity Policy Whack-A-Mole in K-12 Education mol.doak_fhrr Wed, 11/01/2023 - 12:34 When an IT administrator in K–12 puts a cybersecurity policy in place after an incident, they could be responding to anything from a high-level ransomware attack to an amateur phishing attempt targeting emails for network access. But regardless of the size or complexity of the incident, the privacy and security of students’ sensitive personal information is at risk of falling into the wrong hands. According to Verizon’s 2022 Data Breach Investigations Report, the educational services sec ..read more

Passkeys vs. Passwords: Enhanced Security in K-12 Schools mol.doak_fhrr Tue, 10/31/2023 - 10:24 Most technologies will require users to update their passwords at a regular cadence, increasing the security level, strength and difficulty of the combination of letters, numbers and special characters. The National Cybersecurity Alliance encourages strong passwords as a priority for maintaining strong cybersecurity. However, last year, Google, Apple and Microsoft announced plans to support passkeys, a stronger alternative to passwords. Earlier this year, Google integrated passkeys into some versio ..read more