Survey finds IT security lacking at public schools
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Public school districts have experienced increasing levels of security breaches to their computer networks in the past year, but a new report says three-quarters of districts have inadequate physical and cybersecurity.
The 2009 School safety Index, issued by CDW Government, Inc. (CDW-G), reported an overall decline in schools' physical and cybersecurity scores. In the last 12 months, 55 percent of districts reported experiencing an IT breach, such as unauthorized user access, hacking or viruses, while 67 percent experienced a physical breach such as break-ins.
Most IT breaches originate internally - 41 percent from students and 22 percent from staff or employees, the report said. Districts' top IT and physical security barriers were a lack of budget, too few staff resources and the need for more security tools.
Bob Kirby, vice president K-12 education, CDW-G, said many districts are missing the opportunity to counter increased breaches by sharing best practices with other districts and engaging district administrators regularly on security priorities and investments.
Although 92 percent of districts are using some type of encryption to protect data, 40 percent said they spend just four hours or less per month reviewing questionable internet activity - revealing a gap in monitoring that could expose networks to security risks, the report said.
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