All cyberattacks have the potential to damage your school district, but few pose a greater threat than a ransomware attack.
A ransomware attack can cause significant financial, reputational, operational, and legal challenges. This is particularly true for the education sector — an industry that’s disproportionately targeted. In 2023, 80% of lower education providers and 79% of higher education providers experienced ransomware attacks, an increase from 56% and 64% respectively in the previous year.
Now that over 90% of schools are using cloud services like Google Workspace, there’s an exponentially greater number of opportunities for a ransomware threat to infiltrate your district.
All schools must strengthen their security posture to ensure their sensitive data is protected. Read on to learn about six simple steps you can take to help safeguard your student data, especially when it comes to Google Workspace.
Ransomware is a type of malware and, like any malware, it seeks to infiltrate your system and take advantage of your sensitive data. As the name suggests, a ransomware attack works by blocking access to your information and holding it ransom in exchange for payment. In other words, a ransomware threat is the cybersecurity equivalent of a hostage situation.
Ransomware attacks have become a prominent concern in K-12 education. According to the K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center, 2021 was the first year on record that ransomware has been the most frequently reported attack on K-12 school districts.
Why school systems? Because they’re an easy target. The majority of schools operate in the cloud — most of them through Google Workspace. But very few — less than 20% — allocate their budgets to cloud security. With cloud services rising in popularity, schools represent a great opportunity for criminals to exploit these avenues and make a quick buck off ransomware victims.
And a lot of the time, they do. Student data is extremely valuable, meaning ransomware is very costly. For instance, one Texas school district paid over $540,000 to protect sensitive data from being published in response to a ransomware infection. In another incident in New York, the Buffalo School Board spent nearly $10 million on external IT consultants in response to an attack.
There are also consequences you can’t put a price on. When student data is exposed to the public, there’s no telling who or how someone might access and take advantage of their information.
Any educational institution, big or small, knows the value of proper information security. We put together the following ransomware prevention checklist to help K-12 schools strengthen their security posture and reduce the likelihood of financial, operational, and legal damages.
A phishing email is one of many tactics that a threat actor might use to infiltrate your district’s Google Workspace. Cybercriminals fool their victims into clicking on a link or downloading an attachment in a phishing email. Once that happens, they can inject malware into your system and access data as they please.
Nowadays, a phishing email can be difficult to spot without an email security tool. Google offers its own Investigation Tool to help you identify any user who’s received a malicious email. ManagedMethods, on the other hand, can detect phishing 24/7 on its own, even when your security team is off the clock. By finding and deleting or quarantining suspicious emails, you can save yourself the trouble of a ransomware infection in its early stages.
Malware is any code or software that a threat actor uses to hack into your school district, such as a virus. As previously mentioned, ransomware is itself a type of malware and works by encrypting your sensitive data so that users cannot access it until a ransom is paid.
Google provides tools for detecting malware in attachments, links, and external images. ManagedMethods takes malware detection several steps further by automatically monitoring your Google Workspace, immediately alerting you to threats, and automatically deleting or quarantining the source — making malware deletion fast and simple.
Suspicious login activity is a telltale sign that one of your accounts has been compromised. It’s also an indicator that a hacker is testing out their ransomware attack plan, as they often do several days before a strike.
With the aid of a cloud security platform like ManagedMethods, you can easily investigate suspicious login activity. The system provides a complete log of behavior that can be filtered to identify issues before they spiral out of control. Suspicious login activity might include logins from other countries or impossible login timing, as in someone logs into the account from the U.S. and then there’s another login from China within a couple of hours. ManagedMethods will revoke access to infected users to give your team time to evaluate the situation.
Lateral phishing is a close cousin to traditional social engineering scams, but is usually even more tricky to handle. A lateral phishing scam is one that comes from a trusted source, such as a fellow student or teacher’s account. Under the veil of authenticity, scammers use compromised accounts to send more phishing emails and entice users into providing personal information.
Even worse, lateral phishing can’t be detected by traditional, gateway-based security systems. ManagedMethods, however, uses content and keyword scanning tools to identify risky communications, thus helping you identify and delete lateral phishing emails.
Third-party apps are the building blocks of your cloud environment. Most are helpful, but some can be malicious. In fact, per reporting from Security Intelligence, over two-thirds of malware downloads originate from cloud apps.
Cybercriminals exploit third-party apps using OAuth credentials. If they can infiltrate approved third-party apps, such as those provided by Google Workspace, they can slip undetected into your district’s domain. Google allows you to control which apps have access to sensitive data, but ManagedMethods gives you enhanced visibility into exactly which apps are risky and what permissions they receive, who is using them, what permissions have been granted, and more. Plus, you can easily sanction and unsanction individual apps and remove them from your domain.
Ransomware attacks can happen any number of ways, and mitigating the threat vectors listed above is no easy task. If your security team is small, you might feel like your back is up against the wall.
That’s where automation comes into play. Automated tools can multiply the force of your existing defenses and take information security to another level. The ManagedMethods platform provides tools to manage turnkey and customizable policies, empowering you to streamline incident investigation and remediation efforts.
Ransomware security best practices
You can never have too many helpful tips when it comes to ransomware. To ensure we leave you with as much tangible information as possible, let’s highlight a few best practices.
With a cloud security solution like ManagedMethods on your side, you can easily protect your Google Workspace from a ransomware threat. Through automated detection and remediation, you’ll be able to get ahead of the curve and put a stop to ransomware before it’s too late.
Cloud Monitor by ManagedMethods provides K-12 schools with an advanced, AI-driven security solution that’s specifically designed to enhance their cyber defense capabilities. It seamlessly integrates with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 to deliver comprehensive monitoring and protection against a wide range of threats including ransomware, phishing, malware, and account takeovers.
By offering real-time alerts, automated remediation, and detailed analytics, Cloud Monitor ensures that schools can maintain a robust security posture without requiring extensive IT resources. Furthermore, Cloud Monitor’s compliance measures with student data privacy laws such as FERPA and COPPA provide additional assurance that student information is handled securely and ethically.
With Cloud Monitor, K-12 schools can focus on education while trusting their cybersecurity needs are comprehensively managed.
Learn more about Cloud Monitor by ManagedMethods.