Education Cybersecurity Weekly is a curated weekly news overview for those who are concerned about the Education industry. It provides brief summaries and links to articles and news across a spectrum of cybersecurity and technology topics that are specific to the industry.
One hacker. Several months of the undiscovered data exposure. 500,000 students, whose personal information was compromised.
How the [Grinch] hacker stole the data of 500,000 San Diego Unified students
EdScoop on December 26, 2018
One hacker. Several months of the undiscovered data exposure. 500,000 students, whose personal information was compromised.
Don Corleone would look doubtfully at someone telling him this news. Fortunately, you are not an influential Italian mafioso, so we do not need to prove that cybercrime nowadays is one of the powerful security threats.
The San Diego Unified School District reported the data breach affecting nearly half a million current and former students and staff. The methodology of a malefactor was common – the attacker got access to the sensitive information through a phishing email directed at a district employee.
Although district IT staff members were aware of the hack in October, the victims were informed two months later in order to keep the investigative efforts in secret from hackers. Actually, this case illustrates the tendencies we pointed out in “A Brief History of Higher Education Insecurity”.
The Idaho National Laboratory – a space of the national cybersecurity development
Statesman Journal on December 24, 2018
We guess, that place reminds a secret laboratory in a fantastic movie scene. A darkened space, illuminated by monitor screens, 50 involved in a cyber research workers and the atmosphere of secrecy that makes you speak quieter.
One of the United States’ primary cybersecurity facilities is located at the Idaho National Laboratory, where the security specialists protect the state systems, operating energy pipelines, hydroelectric projects, drinking water systems and nuclear power plants.
What is interesting, the laboratory is expanding. In the near future there will be the Cybercore Integration Center, holding 20 laboratories and 200 workers, and the Collaborative Computing Center, pretending to be one of the nation’s most powerful supercomputers. That means the cybersecurity workforce gap, experts frequently told about in 2018, does not lose its topicality.
By the way, the Idaho National Laboratory holds competitions among junior and high school students to nudge tech-savvy youths toward cybersecurity careers. After all, being a guardian of information security means to be knighted in the 21st century.