Coverage - Privacy & Information

Remote learning platforms can open districts to cyberattacks. Fund members can protect their organization if they understand how to reserach vendors, evaluate platform security, and configure their software.

To keep cybercriminals at bay, you should build a culture of cybersecurity awareness in your school. Here are seven tips to help you get there.

To keep cybercriminals at bay, you should build a culture of cybersecurity awareness in your school. Here are seven tips to help you get there.

Schools handle a lot of data, which can be a prime target for cybercriminals. Cyber-attacks have drastically increased in frequency in recent years, resulting in trillions of dollars in damages against entities of all sizes, including smaller governmental entities like school districts. The TASB Risk Management Fund recognizes schools’ rising risks of cybercrime, which is why the Fund created its Privacy and Information Security coverage program to meet members’ safety needs in the digital age.

The start of a school year brings new opportunities, new challenges, and unfortunately, new risks. Increasingly, these emerging risks begin in the cyber domain and target school districts. To prevent a successful cyberattack against your district, it is imperative that leadership and staff stay informed. Let’s examine four of the most significant new threats you need to know about and identify methods for anticipating these risks.

The rapid, global spread of COVID-19, commonly known as coronavirus, has generated uncertainty and fear among employees across industries. Additionally, the health and safety measures recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have seen millions of workers leave their offices for work-from-home or other telecommuting options.

During the last legislative session, Texas lawmakers passed two cybersecurity-related bills school districts need to know about. Senate Bill 820 and House Bill 3834 will set new standards and requirements that strengthen districts’ ability to protect sensitive data. At TASB, we are monitoring the legislation’s rollout and preparing our members to fulfill their obligations. We encourage you to share this snapshot of the latest developments with your leadership and information technology teams.                  

It’s that time of year again! As we all work hard to ensure our taxes are in order, cybercriminals are looking to claim their own returns. According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), hackers have stolen W2s from approximately 1,000 employers since 2017. As a result, the tax information for hundreds of thousands of employees, many of them from school districts, has been compromised. The IRS estimates that this string of identity theft has led to over 1.5 million fraudulent tax returns and more than $2.3 billion in bogus refunds. We encourage TASB Risk Management Fund members to follow these tips for protecting employees’ sensitive information this tax season.

Teacher salaries, student transportation, and facilities maintenance are just a handful of the many line items on school districts’ budgets. Right now, criminals could be trying to steal your much-needed funds and, ultimately, compromise your ability to deliver a quality education to Texas school children.

With the holiday season in full swing, school districts should remain on high alert for cybercriminals looking to take advantage of the hustle and bustle. We recently saw a trend in phishing campaigns against Texas schools that resulted in significant financial loss. We encourage everyone to take extra precautions to avoid landing on Santa’s naughty list, or worse, falling victim to cyberattacks during the holidays.

So often, when people hear the term cybersecurity, they think of digital attacks against electronic information systems secured by sophisticated software. Though this description is accurate, it isn’t comprehensive. Cybersecurity also includes non-digital elements, such as physical security and human psychology. In fact, one of the most common cyber scams, known as phishing, relies on deception to manipulate people into sharing confidential or personal information through email.

Your organization’s laptops and mobile devices house personally identifiable information (PII) such as birthdates, addresses, social security numbers, medical records, and bank account numbers. If you sell, donate, or dispose of electronic devices without properly wiping them clean, all that PII goes with them.

Cybersecurity isn’t just a technical problem. It’s a people problem, and it’s impacting school districts across the state. TASB Privacy and Cyber Risk Consultant Lucas Anderson recently shared his expertise on this topic during a TASB Talks podcast.

The Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) reports that over the weekend, 23 governmental entities were hit with a ransomware attack.

Imagine someone breaking into your house, staying there undetected for four years, and stealing from you the entire time. That is exactly what happened to global hotel chain Marriott, virtually speaking.

The day started like any other. Staff arrived at school and prepared for the business of educating young minds. But when they tried to log into their computers, they realized someone arrived long before them, wrapped up their own business, locked the computers, and left an ominous message behind: “The files on this computer have been encrypted. You have seven days to submit payment via bitcoin or all files will be permanently deleted.”