Online courses have been available for learning since the internet and technology reached the hands of the common man. Pandemic gave the much-required trigger for taking online teaching and learning to a new level. Regular schools and colleges going online with classes and changing work culture have made the remote working everyday norm. Cyber-attacks have hit around 1000 schools, colleges, and universities around the globe during the period of June-September in the year 2020. This makes it evident that cybersecurity awareness has become a priority in this new normal of teaching and learning. Teaching staff and students utilizing the capabilities of online teaching and learning in their everyday life need to empower themselves to secure their devices and use the technology mindfully to not fall prey to cyberattacks.
Transition to Online Teaching and Learning Regularly
As pandemics cut us off from our routine, teaching and learning went remote. The teaching staff, students, and parents, none was ready for this quick change. The students were not equipped with the technology required such as laptops, internet connections, and many parents were not aware of using the technology and a huge percentage of them were not aware of using the technology safely. In June 2020, Microsoft Security Intelligence reported that the education industry experienced around 61% of the 7.7 million malware attacks
The prime reason for cybersecurity importance for teachers and students is because they are unaware of the technical knowledge.
Cyber Threats for Schools and Teachers
School networks and teachers are facing attacks in 5 ways mentioned below.
Phishing
The carefully masked attacks are designed to trick the victim to reveal their sensitive information such as credit card details and passwords. Around 90% of attacks begin with phishing as per CoSN.
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDOS)
Cyberattacks are designed to attack numerous systems by flooding the resources of the servers.
Data Breach
Sensitive and private data is collected by cybercriminals by organizing data breaches.
Ransomware
Here the cybercriminals hold the data at ransom in exchange for money or other demands. It is found that ransomware cost is around $7.5 billion in the year 2019.
Tips of Cybersecurity for Teachers
Knowing the threats educators face, now let’s take a peek at precautions to be safe while using computers
Encrypting data
Cybercriminals get hands with the content of the classroom during the transition from teacher to student. So, encrypting the data being sent and received would be a safe option to prevent stealing the data.
Understand and follow the cybersecurity protocols set at schools
Spend some time and effort to understand the cybersecurity protocols devised at schools. Make it a routine to follow these rules every day to be safe.
Take backup your data
It is crucial to take a backup of the student data to prevent cybercriminals from getting hands-on with them. Hackers can steal the data and use it for malicious attacks on individuals or hold the institution for ransom.
Follow good password management
It is a wise decision to select a password that is not your nickname or date of birth. The password is alphanumeric, with a combination of both capital and small letters.
Cyber threats for online students and Parents
Parents are forced to expose their children to online education due to pandemics. The instances of cyberattacks on children have been worrisome. Once the children are online, it becomes a challenge to know what they are being exposed to, the videos they are watching, the people they are interacting with. Commonly occurring cyberattacks attacking young children are:
Cyber Predators
The cybercriminal intends to get in touch with young children to cause emotional and financial harm. The criminals use the innocence and immaturity of the kids and can cajole them to meet people whom they have not met so far. As per Cybertip, there is an 81% increase in child exploitation reports since the onset of the pandemic in Canada.