Ntirety highlights the importance of cyber security and the remote classroom

In 2020, going back to school has been like no other in history, as remote learning, modified schedules, virtual classes, and hybrid class modes became ‘normal.’ Seeing kids return to universities, high schools and elementary schools has required new levels of fortitude for parents.

Fortunately, a foundation of technologies with features that include the Cloud, video, conferencing, and collaboration make distant classroom situations achievable.

With a last-minute scramble to find the right tools, Spring 2020 brought new vulnerabilities and headaches for students, teachers, parents, and school boards. Fall 2020 presents many of these same challenges, as schools remain in baseline mode, sorting out cyber security threats and confronting new demands.

Cyber class concerns

The first day of school was postponed in cities throughout the US, after ransomware infections were discovered

Between July and August 2020, the average number of weekly cyber-attacks per educational facility in the U.S.A. rose by 30%, seeing a jump from 368 to an overwhelming 608 reported attacks – many of which go unreported to avoid public attention.

What should be the biggest concern in a remote classroom? Cyber security, with the plague of ransomware leading the list. The first day of school was postponed in cities throughout the US, after ransomware infections were discovered, in many IT networks, causing prolonged outages and adding yet another hurdle to the already challenging start to the school year.

Brute force attacks of school district IT systems

In addition to the brute force attacks of school district IT systems, most students, teachers, and staff have not been educated on the threats that exist to their working environment from the outside – risks that attempt to breach trust and originate from endless sources. Being locked out from private files, spreading infection among students, and losing access to classrooms for even just one day – these are the new disruptive showstoppers in education.

Moreover, many environments have little management of students’ endpoints, exacerbating cyber security and consistency problems. In other situations, not every student has dependable access to quality Internet, which can affect the experience of video, voice, and collaboration within classroom tools.

Zoom and the Cloud tool boom

Enter the August 2020 Zoom outage, just as classes were returning to ‘normal’ and students were expecting to see each other in virtual classes, the global disruption in August forced cancelled classes and forced already overworked instructors to heroically come up with alternatives.

The educational classroom platform market is filled with mega-competitors and specialised software suites from companies, such as Microsoft, Google, and Apple. Shortly after the Zoom crash, Cisco Systems’ WebEx Classroom emerged as a compelling alternative in a booming market. Yet, with many options come many risks, and the Zoom outage proved that even the seemingly most reliable can’t guarantee 100% uptime, much less robust security.

The risks of rushing to remote learning tools

School systems and universities have a lot to learn, when it comes to cyber security (no pun intended)

School systems and universities have a lot to learn, when it comes to cyber security (no pun intended) - most of their IT security posture and resources are no match to cybercriminals. The widespread impact of the Zoom outage highlights a lack of contingency plans caused, in part, by a panicked rush to find online remote learning tools at the onset of the lockdowns and quarantines.

Many of the tools that schools adopted early in the remote classroom boom were primarily built for business in mind, resulting in a gap of functionality and scale for classroom needs.

Protecting the privacy of students

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law that requires schools to have control over the disclosure of personally identifiable information. Schools have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the privacy of their students, just like businesses protect credit card information and healthcare organisations protect patient records.

The evolution of classroom remote tools is necessary, but it will take time and extreme caution to work itself out, in order to cater to the needs of the classroom audience they serve and ensure proper security standards.

Catastrophic cyber security vulnerabilities

Catastrophic cyber security vulnerabilities are alive and well in schools and businesses. No one is safe.  While new feature sets and technologies are emerging in an attempt to rise to the occasion, it’s critical that schools remain cognisant of the risks around adopting something without properly vetting it. Ignoring risks is not a strategy, as was discussed in my article looking at IT Lessons from the Beirut Blast.

The month of October is Cyber security Awareness Month - schools must acknowledge and understand this key moment and raise proper awareness around it. School boards and super-intendants must have a cyber security strategy and governance in place now, more than ever, just as is expected from corporations and businesses.