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Top 3 Cybersecurity Tips to Strengthen Your Defenses This Back-to-School Season

As summer ends and the back-to-school season begins, K-12 tech leaders face many cybersecurity and safety challenges. To help smooth the transition to a secure start to the 2024-2025 school year, we recently hosted a webinar featuring Samuel Hoch, Technology Director at Catoosa Public Schools, and Robert Batson, Technology Director at Tahlequah Public Schools.

In this webinar, Samuel and Robert shared their best practices and proactive strategies for addressing the cybersecurity concerns of the upcoming school year, stressing the most about phishing and malware threat protection. You can watch the full webinar recording here.

3 Top Cybersecurity Tips to Strengthen Your Defenses This Back-to-School Season

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Gone are the days when K-12 tech teams only worried about firewalls, updating servers, and preventing students or teachers from accessing shared drives. Today, with the rapid evolution of educational technology, the landscape of K-12 education has been transformed.

Educational technology offers benefits like enhanced collaboration and improved efficiency, but it also introduces new challenges in cybersecurity and cyber safety.  To help navigate these concerns, Samuel Hoch and Robert Batson share three top tips for strengthening your cybersecurity defenses this back-to-school season.

  1. Multi-Factor Authentication

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) has been a hotly debated topic in K-12 districts, yet its implementation in schools should no longer be seen as optional. While some users may find the extra verification prompts inconvenient, MFA exists to protect our sensitive data. Passwords alone are no longer sufficient to protect sensitive information, and MFA provides an additional layer of security.

Many insurance carriers are also now requiring school districts to use MFA as a defense against ransomware and other cyber threats. For schools concerned about the cost, leading vendors, like Google and Microsoft, often offer MFA solutions as part of their existing services at no additional licensing costs. 

  1. Locking down extensions on Chromebooks

Ever since the 2020 pandemic, Google Chromebooks have played a significant role in providing access to digital learning for students across the country. These devices also offer access to a wide range of educational apps and online resources.

However, the use of these learning apps and resources can pose potential security risks. Students might come across security loopholes, which could compromise the school district’s devices. To address this, administrators need to take control and manage the students’ Chromebooks by filtering out any unwanted apps and extensions.

To do this, administrators can visit the “Set Chrome device policies” page in the Google admin console and navigate to “View and configure apps and extensions.” Here, they can set policies for, add, view, and remove apps and extensions from the students’ Chromebook devices.

In addition, administrators can implement a web content filter for an extra layer of security. ManagedMethods’ Content Filter is an excellent option for school districts to protect students from harmful content and eliminate unwanted distractions.

  1. Mitigating third-party apps 

While third-party apps offer numerous benefits to both teachers and students, they can create real data security risks and student privacy concerns. They also pose compliance problems for district risk managers. 

When users use OAuth to connect their school accounts with third-party apps, they’re allowing access to permissions that can be exploited to access sensitive data, launch a phishing attack, and more. Not only that, but many of these apps can expose students to inappropriate content and lack educational value.

Having a product in place, like Cloud Monitor, will help you:

  • Identify which user(s) and organizational units have connected the apps.
  • Investigate app information such as app category, permission scopes, risk level (low, medium, high, and critical), the percentage of other Cloud Monitor customers who have sanctioned the app, and the number of Organizational Units and users that have activated the app.
  •  Automatically detect certain apps and take the desired action to remove, unsanction and/or warn the users.
  • Import sanctioned and unsanctioned apps lists to automatically allow or disallow known third-party apps.

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How technology can uplift student safety

Of course, digital tools can still be a force for good. With the right technologies, you can counteract threats and manage online risks.

Here are two methods you can use to proactively protect your students:

Content filtering: Cloud-based content filters block access to inappropriate content. They can also protect users from malicious websites, thereby keeping hackers at bay. You can also prevent students from accessing distractions such as social media or online gaming sites.

Cloud monitoring: School districts must intervene as early as possible when student safety is at risk. Cloud monitoring strengthens visibility, enabling you to spot signs of bullying, harassment, abuse, or suicidal ideation at a moment’s notice.

Best of all, you don’t have to look far and wide to find these solutions individually. At ManagedMethods, we offer all of these capabilities and more. Better yet, our Cloud Monitor and Content Filter platforms are made specifically for K-12 school districts.


Learn more about how ManagedMethods can help you create a safe learning environment, and check out our back-to-school technology guide today.

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Category
K-12 Cybersecurity ,Webinar Blog Series