Why Are School Districts The New Favorite For Hackers?
A lack of funding and IT staff makes for an inviting target…
An article review.
While it seems like everyone from individuals to major corporations are targeted by hackers these days, one group has been targeted with increasing frequency—and success: school districts. That’s according to a recent article in The New York Times, which notes that while other public organizations are also frequent targets, school districts often lack dedicated cybersecurity staff and are especially inviting.
When attacks do happen, that lack of security training can make things worse: recent incidents in Louisiana have managed to completely disable systems district-wide, forcing staff to use paper and pencil to collect attendance and perform other functions. In another incident in New York State, a school district’s insurance policy covered a ransomware attack…after the district paid a $50,000 deductible.
Owing to their often limited budgets, cybersecurity training and additional IT staff are often hard sells for school districts, whose IT departments (if they exist formally at all) are kept busy simply keeping things running. If these recent attacks have proven anything, though, it is that the cost of not being prepared can easily exceed the cost of training and additional staff.
Original article by Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs writing for The New York Times.
