Finding Balance Between Security And Access To Technology For Schools

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

How K-12 institutions can leverage technology safely for enhanced learning experiences.

While schools are turning to technology solutions to improve educational experiences and student outcomes, the challenges of leveraging them safely are substantial. Since 2005, 135 school data breaches have resulted from lost or stolen mobile devices. Fully half of all data breaches are caused by insiders, either knowingly or inadvertently, and two-thirds of all higher education institutions now carry cyber liability insurance. MSPs and VARs can help their education clients find this balance by offering several key strategies to follow.

A white paper from the Center for Digital Education notes, “In the past, education institutions were not prime targets for attacks. However, as more institutions turn to data-rich, digital environments, dangers loom from both inside and outside campus walls. With threats coming from all directions, institutions need to know how 21^st-century education is changing the data security landscape, learn strategies to protect themselves and understand how to balance the benefits with the risks.”

According to IBM’s 2015 Cyber Security Intelligence Index, insiders are the source of half of all data breaches, and insiders for educational institutions can include not only students, staff, and faculty, but also parents and siblings who serve as de facto tech partners for children’s mobile devices, as well as third-party vendors and contractors, or state and education agencies.

Among the growing risks in today’s data-rich education are exacerbated security vulnerabilities created by increased demand for data storage, devices, access points, and digital platforms. To create a healthy balance between access and security, the report, Schools are Data and Device Rich- Can They Also Be Cyber-Secure?,  offers three basic strategies to help leverage academic data while buffering data security risks.

1. Raise awareness of data ethics and stewardship. Many institutions require and provide training for staff, faculty, students and parents via workshops or online courses, and provide community engagement efforts to help focus attention on protecting data.
2. Use data sharing agreements and manage third-party partners. Institutions must be vigilant in applying security and privacy standards across all third-party vendor partnerships to protect sensitive data. Vendors also can help boost their efforts to comply with these standards to help protect their clients’ data.
3. Consider cyber liability insurance. As cyber criminals become more sophisticated and as educational institutions deal in larger amounts of protected data, the chances that a data breach will occur escalate. Many institutions are now turning to cyber liability insurance to help protect against the cost of an attack, including breach notifications, credit monitoring, and compliance with various notification laws.

As education technologies, data security strategies and 21st-century learning strategies mature, education leaders will better know how to innovate while also addressing important concerns. “To get the benefits of data-enabled instruction, schools would need to collect and analyze more student data than they have in the past. They would also need to collect this information more often and more vigorously, and then make relevant portions of it available to more people and organizations,” wrote Michael Chui and Jimmy Sarakatsannis in a McKinsey & Company article. “The risks are real, but they can be managed, leading to real rewards in the form of better student learning and achievement.”