According to a report from the K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center, the K-12 public school districts and education agencies across the U.S. suffered a total of 348 cyberattacks in 2019, which is three times more incidents that were disclosed in 2018. The report, “The State of K-12 Cybersecurity: 2019 Year in Review,” stated that most of the attacks that were significant resulted in the theft of millions of dollars, stolen identities, denial of access to school technology and IT systems for weeks. The effect of such attacks on educational institutions resulted in loss of personal information, including student grades and qualifications, teacher employment and payroll information, and family records and medical health records.
The report also highlighted that 775 cybersecurity incidents impacted students and educators since 2016, in which over 50% of them were due to insiders in the school community, including vendors and other third-party partners. The second most frequent type of security incident suffered by schools, according to the report, was ransomware attacks.
Douglas A. Levin, President of EdTech Strategies and report author, said, “There are…
