Many school websites contain pages that include links to gambling, counterfeit products, and pornographic material.
In a study uncovered by Infosecurity, researcher Terence Eden found academic, primary and secondary education websites that had pages with strange text and links to strange websites.
Many schools have been hacked to hide pornographic material on their websites. Churchfield CE Primary School's website contains hidden pages and Portal House School, a specialist school for pupils with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties, has a huge amount of sexual content hidden on its pages.
Eden explained that hackers link them to external websites and then get an SEO boost when search engines crawl a seemingly trustworthy website.
Bishop Challoner is a Catholic federation of schools and they have several pages on their website that direct to online pharmacies.
Other school websites were also found to contain links to gambling, essay writing services, and counterfeit products.
Eden said that schools often lack the necessary skills to maintain and protect school websites. The majority of websites that have been hacked are in the private sector and likely do not have the financial resources to ensure the security of their websites.
The researcher emphasized the need for centralized management of online security, saying that it should be the job of each local education authority.
Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys, said in an email to Infosecurity that there are vulnerabilities at all levels of websites: in Content Management Systems, in web server software, and in operating systems!
