{"id":286273,"date":"2026-07-06T08:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/06\/why-schools-are-easy-prey-for-hackers-and-why-they-struggle-to-fight-back\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T08:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:20:09","slug":"why-schools-are-easy-prey-for-hackers-and-why-they-struggle-to-fight-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/06\/why-schools-are-easy-prey-for-hackers-and-why-they-struggle-to-fight-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Why schools are easy prey for hackers \u2014 and why they struggle to fight back"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why schools are easy prey for hackers \u2014 and why they struggle to fight back<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cybersecuritydive.com\/news\/schools-cybersecurity-threats-education-sector-reporters-notebook\/824123\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-07-06 08:05:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.cybersecuritydive.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u2019s no surprise that schools and their technology vendors have been falling prey to cyberattacks in massive numbers over the past few years.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Supply chain vulnerabilities represent the biggest threat to schools, as the recent <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>PowerSchool<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> and <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Canvas<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> breaches demonstrate. These supplier relationships are difficult for schools, with limited IT personnel, to manage and secure. And once cybercriminals penetrate a vendor\u2019s software, they often use that access to roam freely across schools\u2019 networks. There, they typically find <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>a wealth of valuable data<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>, from employee payroll records to parents\u2019 financial information to students\u2019 healthcare data. The hackers who breached the Los Angeles Unified School District stole information about <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>students\u2019 homelessness status and disabilities<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The surge in cyberattacks comes as the federal government has <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>effectively abandoned<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> 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 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>years of warnings<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> about the need for change, and the Trump administration\u2019s sweeping cuts to the department have only <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>exacerbated the problem<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>. The administration has also <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>eliminated funding<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> for a state and local information sharing group that greatly benefited schools, and it has <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>suspended the work<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> of <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>a recently formed coordinating body<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> for the education sector along with similar groups for other sectors.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the latest episode of <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>our Reporters\u2019 Notebook series<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>, Cybersecurity Dive senior reporter Eric Geller discussed the cybersecurity threats facing schools with Dark Reading…<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why schools are easy prey for hackers \u2014 and why they struggle to fight back…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":286274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/imgproxy.divecdn.com\/8oh9HOOtr521onvjK2H2RYfLGpg2XGMsxe4rrdHj6UA\/g:nowe:0:0\/c:2577:1718\/rs:fit:770:435\/Z3M6Ly9kaXZlc2l0ZS1zdG9yYWdlL2RpdmVpbWFnZS9SZXNpemVBbmRyZXdfSmFja3Nvbl9BY2FkZW15X0VsZW1lbnRhcnlfTGlicmFyeV9Hcm91cF9Xb3JrX1RhYmxlcy5qcGc=.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":286275,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286273\/revisions\/286275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}