Educational leadership teams know better than anyone else that schools are way more than institutions for learning. They’re vast digital ecosystems filled with sensitive information, valuable resources, and countless online interactions. Implementing the right cybersecurity measures not only protects against potential threats but also empowers schools to operate smoothly and confidently in this tech-driven world. However, not all practices are created equally. In this article, we’ll explore the five key practices we look for as cybersecurity experts – and how they can benefit your school.
1. External attack surface reduction
Schools face threats from various sources. So minimising the number of potential entry points or vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malicious actors from outside a network or system should be a priority. One of the most insidious threats is external opportunistic cybercriminals motivated by financial gain. These threat actors may not be targeting a specific school, but they are on the constant lookout for easy prey.
Schools can combat this type of threat actor by ensuring that their external perimeters are as secure and robust as possible. Schools should also be aware that they have several ‘perimeters’ since they have several gateways to the wider Internet – each of which needs to be secured to prevent abuse and compromise.
Start with your firewall, which most people associate as the primary perimeter boundary between the trusted location of the school’s network and the Internet. Ensuring your firewall is configured securely is a great first step. You can achieve this by ensuring the management interface is not exposed to the Internet, the firewall operating system is kept up to date, and the default admin credentials are changed to something unique, among other things. Firewalls are used to expose your internal resources to the Internet, such as staff, student and parent portals. Regular review of these sanctioned ‘holes’ in your firewall is crucial to ensuring that nothing is accidentally open to the Internet. For example, threat actors love exposed remote desktop services (RDS), because they are aware that schools open RDS to the Internet to allow for easier access to someone who is off-site. Exposed and unpatched RDS are one of the more common ways threat actors find their way into your environment to deploy malware and ransomware, and exfiltrate your sensitive data.
Another perimeter that is often overlooked is a school’s identity platform, such as Microsoft Entra ID. Most schools use Microsoft to store and manage staff, students, and in some cases, parents’ user accounts and email addresses. The method of managing these accounts is increasingly becoming more blurred between on-premise systems, such as Microsoft Active Directory, and cloud-based systems, like Microsoft Entra ID. While being cloud-based provides several benefits that schools now heavily rely on, they become an attractive target for threat actors who are seeking a way into critical systems and data. This is why Multi-factor Authentication (MFA), can be very effective in preventing further compromise.
Similar to your firewall, there are also a number of security configuration hardening options your school should enable to ensure your cloud identity management platform is as robust as possible against malicious attacks like these.
2. Endpoint Detection and Response implementation
Traditional antivirus solutions are simply no longer enough to safeguard school environments. Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions are essential to safeguarding against more sophisticated cyber threats. They provide advanced threat detection and continuous monitoring to identify and respond to potential security incidents quickly and effectively.
By implementing EDR measures, you enable your school to detect suspicious activities like unusual file modifications, lateral network movements, and attempts to bypass security controls. This visibility is crucial in educational settings where numerous devices are used daily, since each one is a potential gateway for malware.
Additionally, EDR solutions often include automated response features, allowing compromised devices to be isolated, malicious files neutralised, and alerts initiated in real-time. This minimises the need for manual intervention, making threat response faster and more effective. By implementing EDR as one of your school’s best cybersecurity practises, you aren’t just reacting to threats – you’re actively defending against them and maintaining a more secure and resilient digital environment.
3. An effective Data Management strategy
A solid data management strategy has become essential to ensuring that the significant amount of sensitive information stored, accessed, and protected by a school is done so in the most appropriate way. This starts with an understanding of:
- Exactly what data is held
- Where it is stored
- Who has access
- How it is used
Key elements of a strong strategy include:
- Data classification (identifying what is sensitive)
- Secure storage solutions
- Strict access controls
Encrypting sensitive information, both at rest and in transit, adds an essential layer of protection to a school’s data. Regular reviews of data management policies are also necessary to update access permissions, revise retention policies, and securely delete outdated information.
4. Regular data backups
Backups are a school’s safety net during a cyberattack, particularly against ransomware, which can lock users out of systems and demand payment to restore access to their sensitive information. Regular backups ensure that even if your school is hit, that data can be restored quickly without paying a ransom or losing it altogether. It’s imperative that schools follow backup best practices that are best suited for schools.
A complete solution includes an on premise copy to facilitate faster restoration, as well as an offsite cloud backup to protect against disaster that destroys the site. A system that supports tamper proof backups, commonly called immutable backups, helps to ensure that the school has secure backups in the event of a ransomware attack.
As one of your general cybersecurity practices, your school should also test its backups regularly to ensure they work as expected and can be restored efficiently. An untested backup may be incomplete, corrupted, or missing recent changes, making it unreliable in a crisis.
5. Applying updates and patches
It’s common for cybercriminals to exploit known vulnerabilities in software and operating systems to gain access to your networks and launch their attack. Applying updates and patches as soon as they become available is one of the simplest, yet most effective ways to protect against ever having those vulnerabilities in the first place.
While schools often face challenges with patch management due to the sheer number of devices in use and potential compatibility issues, failing to address these vulnerabilities leaves your systems exposed and significantly increases the risk of compromise. A vulnerability management system enables a school to leverage automation, and prioritise patching based on risk. This approach has the benefit of minimising wasted effort, reducing classroom disruptions, and improving security.
Safer schools
When it comes to protecting your school from cybercrime, these five practices are a sign that your leadership team understands the importance of cybersecurity and has taken proactive steps to keep their digital environments safe. At the end of the day, these practices aren’t just about checking boxes, they’re about ensuring that students, staff, and communities can engage with technology confidently and securely.
As cybersecurity experts, NetStrategy is dedicated to helping schools build more secure, resilient systems. Whether it’s conducting a security audit, providing advice on the latest technologies, or implementing comprehensive cybersecurity solutions, we’re here to support your school in protecting your most valuable assets. So contact us, and let’s safeguard your school, starting today.
