A prominent English secondary school, Suffolk High School has shut down systems after a cyberattack just days before the start of the new academic year, according to reports.
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Suffolk High School in Debenham, a private secondary school, informed parents last week that an incident required them to disconnect from the network, but there was no indication that personal information had been leaked, according to the BBC.
" While it is difficult to provide exact timelines for a full restoration, our support team has assured us that due to the safeguards we have in place, the restoration process will be faster ," the director, Simon Martin , reportedly said .
Darren Williams, CEO and founder of Blackfog, argued that schools should focus on incident response programs and preventative toolsto minimize cyber. Best practices for password security, along with raising awareness among parents and students about phishing, can help reduce cyberattacks.
"In 2023 so far, education has been one of the most targeted sectors. Unscrupulous cyber attackers continue to target vulnerable schools with under-invested IT infrastructure, a lack of controls, and outdated cybersecurity tools," Williams added.
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«In light of the “back to school” in the coming weeks, both schools and parents/students have a responsibility to ensure that cyberattacks are kept to a minimum and that any incidents that do occur are under control.»
“More than three-quarters of schools in the UK have experienced incidents of cyberattacks.“
A new study from Proofpoint reveals the threats facing schools in the UK, revealing that most of the country's top academic institutions have no email security measures in place.
According to a survey, 96% of the top 50 public high schools and 92% of the top 50 private colleges have not adopted the recommended DMARC protection level (p=reject). This level of protection prevents forgery and the sending of fraudulent emails to recipients.
“ Email authentication protocols like DMARC remain the best way to strengthen email fraud defenses by eliminating domain spoofing or impersonation risk ,” explained Matt Cooke, chief cybersecurity strategist at Proofpoint .
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«As holders of vast amounts of sensitive and critical data, we advise educational institutions across the UK to ensure they have the strictest level of DMARC protection in place to protect those on their networks».
