How local school districts are improving their cybersecurity
COLORADO SPRINGS — As hacking groups are targeting more and more school districts across the country, some Colorado Springs school districts are increasing their cybersecurity to make sure they're not the next victim.
Shelley Kooser is the Chief Information Officer for District 20. After working in the industry, she moved to the school district to help them with their IT and cybersecurity.
"Cyber security really has kind of taken off, especially since COVID with all the online learning," says Kooser.
District 20 tries to take a preventative approach to cybersecurity, making sure their standard procedures protect their data.
"We're really looking at a multi-faceted approach. It's around our resources of training, first of all, that would be training teachers. Training administrators. Making everyone aware because threats change on a daily basis," says Kooser.
Thomas Russell is the Director of Cyber Education at the National Cybersecurity Center. He says that school districts are an easy target for hackers to go after.
"Most schools are not protected enough. There have been 1,331 cyber breaches in the US since 2016 and 8 in Colorado. Those are the reported incidents. The number of actual incidents could be at least double that amount. I personally know of three incidents in Colorado Springs high schools that I know were not reported," says Russell.
He says while hackers target schools, they really just look for the easiest targets that they can.
"Hackers will go after any target they deem to be easy, whether that is an individual or group. If monetary gain is the goal, it makes no difference to hackers. Of course, they would go for the low-hanging fruit, which would be schools, and healthcare facilities, as those to industries try to turn their analog info to digital info and at the exact same time, they are trying to build their infrastructure to protect valuable information," said Russell.
Russell says it would help schools to have a trained cybersecurity professional in their IT departments.
"This position can reside in the regular IT department and some schools can even train their current employees to take this valuable position. Their main duty would be helping to secure the school network and assets," says Russell.
"Hackers are criminals. Our society romanticizes hackers, and they are even held in high esteem in some quarters. Some of the top hackers are recruited by government agencies. Hackers are criminals and I will say to them the same as I would say to a bank robber: Don’t do it. But few criminals are talked out of committing crimes. Presently, it cost more to protect against a cyber attack, then it is for a hacker to breach a system. Until that is flipped, we will be in a never ending battle to protect our data, assets and privacy," said Russell.
The FBI and the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency encourage school districts to fix any breaches that they might already have, along with making sure every staff member is trained to not fall for phishing scams.
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