For K–12 schools and districts, the work of preventing cyberattacks and staying knowledgeable about cybersecurity does not rest with IT teams alone.

District leaders, for example, lead efforts to build school culture around cybersecurity. They also can support the work of their IT professionals.

“It’s a team effort,” Amy McLaughlin, a consultant and cybersecurity project director for the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), said recently during the 2020 Future of Education Technology Conference in Miami. “It requires systematic thinking and a systematic approach, changing our culture and how we do things.”

District leaders should also understand that cybersecurity is a people problem, she said. Employees respond to phishing emails or store passwords in easy-to-spot places, such as Post-it notes affixed to monitors. Mischievous students hack into district computers and networks. Educators install software or download unvetted apps.

And while technology can help prevent cybersecurity problems, it can’t solve them, McLaughlin said.

The ongoing cybersecurity woes of K–12 schools and districts aren’t new; headlines trumpet the latest attacks almost daily. Cyberthieves have targeted schools hundreds of times since 2016. Numerous sessions at FETC focused on the topic of cybersecurity in some form.