Cyber-Security Threats in Schools
A recent survey of schools and their IT administrators shows that cyber-security threats are increasing rapidly. The survey results, which the National Association of School Business Officers (NASBO) reviewed, are based on responses from the organizations that participated to a survey conducted in April 2010.
Schools may have been unaware of the risk because of their past experience with cyber threats, school IT staff, or a concern voiced by the schools they serve.
• Schools and institutions with a cyber-security officer are more likely to have been targeted by a malicious cyber-attack, although they are not as vulnerable as schools without a cyber-security officer.
• Many schools do not have an adequate number of cyber-security officers.
• A significant percentage of schools have poor or no security policies.
• An overwhelming majority of schools do not have a cybersecurity plan.
• cyber-threats can be anticipated by the time an alert is issued.
• staff or students are aware of existing cyber-security issues.
• when a threat to a school is identified.
• when a threat is confirmed.
• when a threat has been identified that can be addressed effectively.
• when employees are trained on how to respond to a cyber-attack.
• when cybersecurity systems and procedures are in place, and staff and students are trained on how to mitigate the consequences of a cyber-attack.
The survey and others in circulation indicate that schools face significant dangers today. Although school security officers have been in place for many years, the threat remains largely unknown within the school community.
Cyber-attacks by computer hackers have become much more common since the first Internet and the first widespread use of computers. Many schools that were slow to update their cyber-security systems as they learned how to deal with the new threat did not address such issues in previous years.
The widespread distribution of computers and the availability of easy credit card acceptance made it easier to deface and steal accounts, obtain credit card data, and commit financial fraud.
An increase in cyber-security threats against schools in New Zealand
A series of breaches have occurred at high-profile private and state primary schools in New Zealand in recent years, and the Ministry of Education (MOE) has acknowledged that these events have increased the risk to schools. As a result, the MOE has updated its school cyber security framework to include critical cyber protection measures to protect students from cyber threats. These measures have been added as part of the School Cyber Security Policy, which is part of a major update to the MOE’s school cyber security framework.
MOE schools do not have any on-campus, or physical, access to computer networks. Access to campus systems, including personal or laptop computers, is restricted to the school’s staff and management. This new framework, along with other measures, is intended to ensure that schools have the necessary tools to respond to cyber threats effectively. These measures will enable schools to communicate with teachers and students to provide guidance, and to prevent the spread of malware and other vulnerabilities.
A series of breaches in New Zealand private and state primary schools have occurred in recent years. One of the most recent incidents took place at the Kaimai Primary School in Waikato, which resulted in the exposure of the student’s personal data. The data exposure occurred in April 2014, and included students’ private contact information, their mobile phones, and their email addresses, among other information.
In early 2014, the school was subject to a cyber attack that lasted three hours. This attack was perpetrated by an individual who was in the country to attend the school’s graduation ceremony. In addition to the exposed student data, the perpetrator used a cyber-weapon to compromise the school’s main database and a number of databases containing information about the school. These breaches caused the school to implement measures, including removing personal information, to protect students from future cyber threats.
The government agency responsible for protecting personal information in New Zealand schools is the New Zealand Personal Information Commissioner. As part of its ongoing reforms, this office has reviewed the school cyber security framework to ensure that schools are preparing for cyber threats that may occur in the future.
Cyberattacks at the Hutt Valley High School –
Information security? A lot of people wonder if they are doing enough to stop the attacks. In my experience it is quite easy to become convinced about the threat, which can affect the whole community and it is also easy to feel helpless. In fact I was the victim of one of these attacks on the one of my best friends. In addition to this attack he was also a victim of a cyber attack at school. I have been wondering about this subject for a long time, but not until recently when I read a book called ‘The Black Swan’ by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (who is also the author of ‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’). I read this book one year ago and it is still one of my favourite books on the subject of science.
I wanted to share this article with you, maybe you will get the idea of what I am about to say in one minute or so.
The book (The Black Swan) describes a scenario when a black swan appears and destroys a financial company, and another black swan appears at a university and destroys a research and development company. In other words the black swan is a global phenomenon.
“it is in the nature of the world. to grow, not to die.
I do not know what can cause such a thing, but when I read the book I am sure that I had to agree to the statement. If this is true then why don’t we have a large black swan destroying the world? Also every time there is a cyber attack all over the world it looks very obvious that there is something behind it. We need to do something about it. I believe that a lot of things like this happen because we are too complacent about cybersecurity.
What do we need to do? Every time there is a cyber attack the question arises for us “do we really need to do anything? It is very easy to give up. We can just wait for a disaster and then we can look for the solution. And another thing I heard is that it is very hard to deal with such events. There are so many people to be cautious about.
A global attack on Kaseya VSA software and a Kindergarten Group.
Article Title: A global attack on Kaseya VSA software and a Kindergarten Group | Network Security. Full Article Text: The new KindergartenGroup malware variant Kaseya VSA (v4. 07) is an advanced threat as the parent malware family and it is the first malware family to be detected by Bitdefender and Microsoft Protection Center/MS-PCC. It is composed of a sophisticated family of malware that contains a range of payloads and a set of exploits and tools for exploiting these payloads, for remote code execution. It is part of a larger botnet of more than 50,000 infected machines and can be used to conduct a number of attacks and malicious activities. In this paper, we explain our approach of detection of the KindergartenGroup malware, which has changed the definition of an advanced attack by the industry. Microsoft lists it as “malicious” and includes it in its security bulletins. However, the KindergartenGroup malware was classified as a zero-day malware in December 2018. It is the first malware to be detected by the threat detection solution from the UK-based security firm Kaspersky, and the oldest malware family in the Kaseya family list. Kaseya VSA is able to execute code with administrative privileges and it targets mostly SMB clients, which are used for running files and processes. The Kaseya family is composed of the Kaseya malware as the parent malware family and these are listed under “KindergartenGroup” in Malware Family. The KindergartenGroups malware family has a unique design and it uses different modes of operation and functionality. The Kaseya group has a significant amount of malicious activities that target a variety of devices such as virtual desktop environemnts, remote desktops, remote file servers, and web servers. The KindergartenGroups malware targets the following: SMB clients, Web Servers, File Servers, Terminal Servers, USB Drives, and Network Cameras. It has a wide range of payloads, payloads have a wide range of effects, payloads can be used to steal sensitive information in a variety of domains, it can be used for launching attacks, and it can be used to steal passwords and login tokens for the infected systems.
Related Posts:
Spread the loveA recent survey of schools and their IT administrators shows that cyber-security threats are increasing rapidly. The survey results, which the National Association of School Business Officers (NASBO) reviewed, are based on responses from the organizations that participated to a survey conducted in April 2010. Schools may have been unaware of the risk…