FAQ Page

Unit 9 Assignment: FAQ Page

Kaplan University

IT 190: Information Technology Concepts

Are my students at Risk in Schools? Cybercrime is not limited to only adults with jobs. Hackers can very well target our children in school as well. Think about the reasoning, we are trained better than they are in the crimes that exist. While our children do use social media more often, and better, than the parents, it also exposes them to risks of cyber-attacks. 1

Are my children’s records safe? Possibly not. It would depend on what your child’s school is doing to secure their network. It is possible that your children’s grades could be found by a cyber attacker or a disciplinary report could go viral. The key here is to treat the schools as serious as we would a business, and secure the records of our children’s work, grades, and progress through their youth.

Should we only worry about outside threats? Absolutely not. What websites your children go to on school computers can make the network just as vulnerable as a person actively trying to hack into the system. While children are in school to learn, they are not stupid. They will find ways to access websites that they should not while in school. We need to ensure vigilance in securing the school’s networks from attacks without and well as within.

Are the threats only External? The threat can come from inside as well, without your child realizing that they are putting people at risk. A Digital Denial of Service can be issued because your child went onto Facebook and posted something about the school. If the security parameters are set correctly, that could shut the entire system down until the issue is resolved.

Do we need to be concerned with Ransomware? Very much a major problem in society is ransomware, which will lock your computers down for a price. While you can fight and get the authorities involved, this is not a quick and easy fix. Once a system is on lock down, it can take a while for everything to be fixed and brought back to normal.

Is there something we can do to assist our children? One solution would be to have children participate in a BYOD program. This will allow your child to come into the school with their own devices with their own security protocols established to connect to the school’s network. This will not solve every problem, but it is a step into the correct direction to protect our children and their records, and their lives.

What should we do with the School Owned devices? ensure that every school owned device is protected. Upgrade the firewall and the anti-spyware on any device that you think will ever leave the property. This is just another step in ensuring that the devices cannot be easily hacked into and information cannot be easily stolen. 2

Is ransomware really that bad? Very much so. It costs hundreds of dollars for you to restore your system, and even then, there is no guarantee that it is secure. Once a device is hacked, would you continue to trust it? Compromise could very well just be a simple fix to distract you from a bigger threat within your system. The best prevention to this type of attack is the best defense that you can afford for your systems. 3

What solutions are there for me? One of the easiest ways to protect your computer is simple for the users. Do not download any software or updates from any source that you do not know or recognize. This sounds easy, and it is. Teach your family not to click the OK button so fast when something pops up about an update to your system. These are not always accurate, ad should be checked out before downloading.

Is that all that I need to do? Unfortunately, no. You should never allow any that does NOT have administrator rights log into a system as an administrator. This will allow hackers to a higher level of access causing bigger, more difficult to resolve issues with your systems. Once the root or core of a system is corrupted, there is little hope that remains to save that system. 4

Can we just implement the rules and forget about them? We need to be vigilant in not only creating rules for internet usage, but we need to monitor all activities. This may seem like we are spying on the children as they use the internet, but it is for their safety as well as the school’s. Net Neutrality aside, we must ensure that the students are not risking data breaches just to access sites that are not required for school or home use.

How can I protect Backups? My recommendation would be for you to use CrashPlan. This program once installed, would be able to keep your boot programs and files safe, should anything attack your system at any time. This program will protect your backups as well as allow you to schedule backups to be run on your system. It features webinars and training documents ot familiarize your team on everything that you need to do to use this program. 5

What tracking could I use? I would recommend using Logic Monitor. This will allow your IT and Admin users to monitor all activity on the school’s net, protecting the students and faculty from attacks. It is a proactive system that will check for vulnerability as well as managing your web threats. There is not a perfect all-in-one system, so you will need to download multiple programs to protect every aspect of your system. 6

Can we protect our email? Using a program like RMail will protect your email from SPAM and attacks from unknown users. There is a free trial and free training to learn how to use this program. This is cloud based, so you have no program that you need to download, and it is also HIPAA compliant, so no fear of your information falling into the wrong hands. 7

If there are any additional questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. My team and I will do everything within our powers to assist and lead your team to success.

REFERENCES:

1 – http://www.govtech.com/data/Schools-May-Put-Student-Data-at-Risk.html

2 – http://www.securityinfowatch.com/article/12113540/protecting-students-and-networks-from-hackers

3 – https://www.business.att.com/learn/secure-networking/how-to-protect-school-networks-from-ransomware-attacks.html

4 – https://www.infoworld.com/article/2660406/security/the-14-best-ways-to-protect-your-computers.html

5 – https://www.capterra.com/p/145112/CrashPlan/

6 – https://www.capterra.com/p/160259/LogicMonitor/

7 – https://www.capterra.com/p/121518/RMail/

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