Morphisec Releases 2021 Education Cybersecurity Threat Index as the Long-term Reality of Hybrid Learning Heightens Cybersecurity Risks for Schools

Just 17% of U.S. educators say their superintendent or chancellor has expressed concern about the threat of ransomware to their institution, as American schools continue to be battered by cybercriminals during a record year for attacks. In addition, just 15% say their school board has shared a worry about the rising frequency of attacks against U.S. schools and universities, despite several incidents within the past year where bad actors disrupted learning and took entire districts offline.

This is according to Morphisec’s 2021 Education Cybersecurity Threat Index, a survey of 517 educators across the U.S. in August 2021. Despite the country’s progress in vaccinating citizens against COVID-19 causing almost every district and higher-ed institution to plan for in-person learning in the fall, the steady rise of the Delta variant in regions where vaccination rates are low has forced them to revert to hybrid learning. This has exacerbated the education sector’s existing cybersecurity vulnerabilities, with crafty cybercriminals increasingly preying on the gaps opened by distanced classrooms, overworked teachers, and remote IT teams.

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As a result, Morphisec, a leader in cloud-delivered breach prevention solutions, found that the number of U.S. schools that were the target of a cyberattack increased significantly in the past year, with attacks against K-12 more than doubling from 9% in 2020 to 21% in 2021. Furthermore, attacks against higher-ed increased from 14% last year to 33% this year. In particular, ransomware attacks have proven particularly menacing, with a quarter of U.S. educators listing it as the threat that currently poses the most danger to their school. That number has doubled since 2020.

As for who represents the biggest risk to their school or institution’s cybersecurity, 40% of U.S educators say they believe that third-party vendors are responsible, more dangerous than students (31%), faculty (24%), and parents (5%). Of course, supply chain attacks like the historic SolarWinds and Kaseya breaches have grown more and more popular due to hackers’ ability to target hundreds or even thousands of businesses at once.

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“As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to create an uncertain environment for educators, the attack surface of schools and universities continues to expand as they remain firmly in the crosshairs of cyberattackers,” said Michael Gerard, Chief Marketing Officer at Morphisec. “While the inclusion of cybersecurity funding in the administration’s infrastructure bill is promising news for these institutions who’ve long been strapped for resources, the reality is that IT teams face a lengthy challenge to protect both students and educators from breaches. It’s vital that they adopt a more proactive approach that thwarts attacks before breaches happen, so that they can ensure full-time access to the IT systems that are powering hybrid learning in this mission-critical environment.”

Other findings from the index include:

• 45% of educators told Morphisec that their IT or security officer has expressed concern to staff about the threat that ransomware poses to their institution.
• Just 15% of educators report that they’re aware of their institution purchasing cybersecurity insurance, including 22% of higher-ed institutions and 16% of K-12 schools.
• Despite the rise in ransomware threats, educators still believe that phishing threats (32%) pose the most current danger to their education institution.
• Educators believe providing their IT department with more resources (44%) would be the most valuable to their school to improve cybersecurity.

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