Cyber attacks increase at ‘soft target’ schools

CYBER attacks are one of the biggest threats that schools face, experts have warned, as new figures show that a fifth of educational establishments have been hit.

Hackers see teachers and parents as a “soft target” since they are often illequipped to deal with cyber thefts, while sensitive data held by schools – such as children’s medical records – are lucrative on the dark web.

Malware and phishing are the most popular types of attacks, according to research commissioned by Ecclesiastical, a specialist insurer for educational establishments.

They found that 20 per cent of educational institutions have been targeted and that universities are generally better prepared than schools.

Faith Parish, the education director at Ecclesiastical, said: “Schools hold interesting information and often quite sensitive information. That means they are a target.

“What we are seeing now is what we would term ‘whaling’, where a finance director or bursar is targeted and asked to transfer thousands of pounds.”

Last month, footage from CCTV cameras at three Blackpool schools was live streamed on a US-based website. The schools quickly moved to reassure parents that the live stream was taken offline within an hour of the security blunder coming to light.

Jen Persson, director of the campaign group Defend Digital Me, has urged the Department for Education to issue guidance for schools on how to keep their data safe.

“Schools use cloud services and outsource the pupils personal data management to all sorts of third parties and apps – no one has oversight of it so it is hard to keep it secure,” she said.