{"id":20544,"date":"2024-04-22T09:17:06","date_gmt":"2024-04-22T16:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webdev.securin.xyz\/?p=20544"},"modified":"2024-04-23T08:48:24","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T15:48:24","slug":"why-should-schools-prioritize-cybersecurity-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webdev.securin.xyz\/articles\/safeguarding-our-schools-the-case-for-prioritizing-cybersecurity","title":{"rendered":"Safeguarding Our Schools: The Case for Prioritizing Cybersecurity"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Digital transformation is instrumental in shaping how organizations function and the education sector is no different. With increased expectations from students and stakeholders alike, educational institutions have overhauled their systems and operations to enable remote accessibility through the cloud. Further, the pandemic accelerated the use of personal devices and online platforms to support remote learning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

This widespread adoption of cloud services has created vulnerabilities, attracting cyber attackers seeking sensitive personal and confidential research data. Safeguarding operations, information exchange, and the well-being of students and staff pose significant challenges, evident in the escalating number of attacks, particularly by ransomware groups. Limited resources, funding constraints, and the use of outdated systems further empower attackers, enabling them to disrupt daily functions and pilfer valuable information for ransom.<\/span><\/p>

To overcome this issue, Securin is working with schools to help them gain resilience against evolving threats.\u00a0<\/i><\/strong><\/p>

Here are the results of an assessment that Securin conducted for a US state\u2019s educational department. We investigated 931 public schools across 188 district and charter schools for the state serving approximately 322,685 students and employing 21,220 teachers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The scan brought up 9,126 assets that include URLs, hosts, SSL certificates, domains and netblocks. Overall, these gave rise to 52,855 exposures that include unpatched vulnerabilities, open ports, misconfigurations and other such instances that could potentially be used by threat actors to wage an attack. <\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Of the identified exposures, our analysts flagged almost 15% as a weak spot or potential vulnerability, and 5% as potentially exploitable implying a high chance of compromise due to the presence of a definite path to exploitation if left unaddressed. <\/span>Securin\u2019s researchers analyzed the exposures in detail and prioritized the ones most dangerous to the institutions.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

Vulnerabilities<\/strong>:<\/strong> We identified 7,881 vulnerabilities across 450 assets. Out of those, 483 are distinct vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers to enter into and penetrate deeper into vulnerable networks. A portion of these vulnerabilities have known exploits, indicating the existence of readily available codes for a threat actor to use in attacking assets with minimum effort.<\/span><\/p>

Ransomware Threats<\/strong>:<\/strong> The exposures include 628 instances with known ransomware exploitation. Of these, our experts call out CVE 2019-11043, a PHP vulnerability with <\/span>NextCry ransomware<\/span><\/a>. Ransomware exposures are of the highest order of danger to schools as they can give rise to ransomware attacks causing users to be locked out of their systems, subjected to ransom payouts, and even result in data encryption or data loss.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Cloud-related Exposures<\/strong>:<\/strong> Over 1.2K assets on the cloud are connected to the internet and can be easily accessed by attackers. Together, this gives rise to 2,616 cloud-related exposures. Our experts also gathered 13,612<\/span> email addresses <\/b>that were exposed, leaving them susceptible to social engineering attacks.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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As a result of Securin\u2019s asset scan and exposure prioritization, institutions were able to get a holistic view of their attack surface, understanding exposures they were not aware of. Many of the schools performed remediation on open exposures and improved their security posture.<\/b><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Four Overlooked Exposures That Schools Should Look For\n<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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A cyberattack can result from multiple exposures introduced into organizational attack surfaces. However, these can easily be discovered if you know how to search. Here are some possible attack methods utilized in recent years.<\/span><\/p>

Unpatched Vulnerabilities<\/strong>:<\/strong> The Pysa and Sabbath ransomware groups exploited unpatched vulnerabilities in school networks to seize their systems.<\/span><\/p>

Connected Devices<\/strong>:<\/strong> Malicious actors take advantage of connected devices to deploy botnets and malware for stealthy network invasions.<\/span><\/p>