The nation鈥檚 top cybersecurity official during a Senate hearing Wednesday urged K-12 schools to take advantage of federal resources for safeguarding their networks and lamented that only a small fraction of schools have done so.
Only 2,000 of the 13,000 U.S. school districts have signed up for free membership in the , which offers government organizations, including school systems, network vulnerability assessment, cyberthreat alerts and other related services. Only about 120 schools are using a no-cost federal service called 鈥�,鈥� which helps prevent IT systems from connecting to harmful web domains.
Those numbers were shared during a Wednesday afternoon by Brandon Wales, acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a standalone federal agency overseen by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
鈥淗ow do we build a national community with the school districts to get them focused on the security aspects related to their networks that are not going to go away even after the pandemic is over?鈥� Wales said.
Even a minimal effort to strengthen cybersecurity could make a big difference for a school district or other government organization, Wales said.
鈥淩ansomware operators are looking to make money quickly, and they are going to look for whoever is the most vulnerable,鈥� he said. 鈥淲ith the bare minimum level of cybersecurity, there is a good chance that the ransomware operator is going to go on to the next victim.鈥�
Wales assumed leadership duties at CISA on Nov. 17 after , the agency鈥檚 director. Krebs had earlier in November with a , which Trump lost but has refused to concede.
U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., who organized the hearing, said the urgency has 鈥渘ever been greater鈥� for stronger federal support for cybersecurity. Possible solutions, she said, include a grant program for state and local governments and improved information-sharing between the federal government and schools.
The hearing also included comments from Leslie Torres-Rodriguez, the superintendent of the Hartford school district in Connecticut. She delayed the start of the school year by one day in September after a ransomware attack temporarily shut down crucial systems, including the district鈥檚 transportation network.
鈥淭wo weeks later, our systems were still not yet fully operational and the costs to address this problem, financially and in resources and staff time, have been significant,鈥� Torres-Rodriguez wrote in her prepared testimony.
The district is now in the process of restoring more than 70 terabytes of data, which has entailed shutting down all servers and drawing from backups.
Perhaps even more debilitating, the cyberattack also required the district to restore to factory settings every digital device that had been connected to the network at the time, Torres-Rodriguez wrote. The district had planned to distribute one laptop for every student in the district, but instead had to divert many of those devices to staff members, delaying efforts to ensure every student can access schoolwork during part- or full-time remote learning.
鈥淲e serve communities that have concentrated levels of need,鈥� Torres-Rodriguez said during the hearing. 鈥淓very minute, every day matters to us in terms of having access to instruction and other social emotional supports.鈥�
Hartford is one of many districts, small and large alike, that have seen the daunting task of maintaining instruction during a devastating pandemic further impeded by cybersecurity threats. Schools in Baltimore County resumed instruction Wednesday after three academic days were canceled due to a 鈥渃atastrophic鈥� hack. Huntsville City Schools in Alabama have suspended classes and after an apparent ransomware attack.
For more on the cybersecurity challenges schools are facing, read Education Week鈥檚 coverage from earlier this week, and its special report on the topic from earlier this year.
