Why schools are easy prey for hackers — and why they struggle to fight back
Why schools are easy prey for hackers — and why they struggle to fight back
Publish Date: 2026-07-06 08:05:00
Source Domain: www.cybersecuritydive.com
When a ransomware gang picks its next target, it looks for a poorly secured organization holding valuable data, providing a vital service or doing both. Few organizations fit that description as perfectly as a K-12 school system. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that schools and their technology vendors have been falling prey to cyberattacks in massive numbers over the past few years.
Supply chain vulnerabilities represent the biggest threat to schools, as the recent PowerSchool and Canvas breaches demonstrate. These supplier relationships are difficult for schools, with limited IT personnel, to manage and secure. And once cybercriminals penetrate a vendor’s software, they often use that access to roam freely across schools’ networks. There, they typically find a wealth of valuable data, from employee payroll records to parents’ financial information to students’ healthcare data. The hackers who breached the Los Angeles Unified School District stole information about students’ homelessness status and disabilities.
The surge in cyberattacks comes as the federal government has effectively abandoned K-12 schools and universities to their fate. The U.S. Department of Education, the Sector Risk Management Agency (SRMA) for the education community, has long been one of the worst-resourced and least-capable SRMAs, despite years of warnings about the need for change, and the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the department have only exacerbated the problem. The administration has also eliminated funding for a state and local information sharing group that greatly benefited schools, and it has suspended the work of a recently formed coordinating body for the education sector along with similar groups for other sectors.
In the latest episode of our Reporters’ Notebook series, Cybersecurity Dive senior reporter Eric Geller discussed the cybersecurity threats facing schools with Dark Reading…
