As the holiday season approaches, many students and teachers are looking forward to time off from school. Unfortunately, this time of year also brings with it an increased risk of cybersecurity incidents. With much of the IT staff off for the holidays, schools and school districts become more vulnerable to cybercriminals who may try to take advantage of weakened security systems. For more details on how school districts are targeted during the holidays, check out this article in The Record: “Data theft plaguing K-12 schools after holiday season attacks”.
How Cyber Threats Increase During the Holiday Season
The holiday season brings many joys to the world, but it also brings with it a dark side in the form of cyber threats. Cybercriminals have become even more sophisticated, leveraging advanced AI technologies and exploiting increasingly complex digital infrastructures. Schools remain prime targets, with recent data showing a 45% increase of attacks against K-12 school districts compared to last year, and recovery costs doubling to over $3.5 million for the average school district in 2024 (source: District Administration).
K-12 School Districts Are Vulnerable to Multiple Types of Attacks
This season, school districts face an increasingly complex threat landscape.
Malicious software remains a primary concern, with new variants becoming more difficult to detect. The latest attacks can now:
- Exploit AI-powered infiltration techniques
- Bypass traditional antivirus protections
- Conduct more sophisticated data exfiltration
- Utilize machine learning to adapt to security measures
Ransomware has evolved significantly. Attackers now use double and triple extortion tactics, not only encrypting data but also threatening to:
- Sell stolen information to other cybercriminal groups
- Launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks
- Publicly shame institutions that don't comply
We see the number of ransomware attacks going up exponentially, due to many ransomware gangs now organizing in highly scalable Ransomware-as-a-Service Groups. Some of these RaaS Operators are leveraging hundreds of “affiliates”, basically independent ransomware practitioners that are licensing the RaaS Operator’s technology and infrastructure. Instead of focusing on just a few (larger) victims, one group can now target hundreds of school districts simultaneously, and regardless of size. This means that any district is now much more likely to be attacked, and districts with less protection than others are the ones getting breached.
Students, teachers and administrators are highly vulnerable to Phishing attacks as those are becoming more personalized and harder to detect. Cybercriminals now use generative AI to create highly convincing emails and messages that mimic school district communications, making them nearly indistinguishable from legitimate communications.
The Timeline of a Cyberattack
The fundamental stages of a cyberattack remain consistent: infiltration, exploration, and exploitation. However, the speed and sophistication of these stages have dramatically increased. AI-powered tools can now complete reconnaissance and infiltration stages in minutes, compared to hours or days in previous years.
Best Practices to Keep Your School District Safe During the Holidays
Cybersecurity best practices have evolved to address more complex threats:
- Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- Perform vulnerability scans to identify critical vulnerabilities before they can be exploited
- Use AI-powered threat detection systems
- Conduct regular security awareness training (SAT)
- Develop and regularly test comprehensive incident response plans (IRP)
- 24/7 multi-vector monitoring, including endpoints, cloud, SaaS apps, network traffic, and user behavior patterns. EDR is not enough.
Schools can mitigate cybersecurity risks by leveraging advanced managed detection and response (MDR) and SOC services that combine artificial intelligence, machine learning, and human expertise to detect, verify, investigate and remediate threats faster and more reliably than an in-house team could. These platforms provide real-time threat monitoring, predictive threat intelligence, and rapid incident response capabilities.
Don't wait until it's too late. Take proactive steps to protect your school district from increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. Invest in a 24/7 cybersecurity protection service to provide maximum protection and peace-of-mind for your district’s Executive and IT leadership.
To learn more contact Securus360 to schedule a time to speak with one of our K-12 cybersecurity experts.
