Last month, the Los Angeles school district was targeted in a massive ransomware attack (see Education Week’s story here). Just weeks ago, Michigan’s South Redford school district was targeted by a cyberattack that closed its schools for two days. Educators and policymakers are justifiably rattled by such attacks and their increasing frequency. But what can they do about them? To answer that, I reached out to Doug Levin, who co-founded the K12 Security Information eXchange (K12 SIX) in 2020 to help schools with their cybersecurity challenges. Doug has tracked this issue closely for decades, having helped craft national educational technology plans for the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. Here’s what he had to say about how to protect schools from cybersecurity attacks in the future.
—Rick
Rick: We’ve seen recent cyberattacks in Los Angeles and South Redford that have garnered national attention. For those of us who don’t usually track such things, what’s going on here?
Doug: The Los Angeles attack has captured our attention primarily because of the size of the district, but it is only the latest high-profile example of ransomware gangs victimizing school…
