Cyber security begins at school

Cyber attacks can be one of the most damaging things that can happen to an organization. Whether it’s a data breach or ransomware, falling victim to an attack can be extremely costly and disruptive, so knowing how to react to an attack is as important as knowing how to prevent one.

Despite this, businesses continue to struggle with keeping employees engaged with cyber security training. With adults apparently not grasping the importance of cyber security skills, there is a growing argument for introducing them while people are still at school, to ensure no one joins the workforce unprepared for the threats they may face.

In this episode, Jane and Rory speak to Matt Lorentzen, principal consultant at information security consultancy Cyberis, to explore how we can effectively instill cyber security best practices through the education sector and why simulated attacks could be an effective method through which common attack vectors can be taught.

Correction: The report cited at the start of this episode was incorrectly attributed to Freshworks, when it was in fact published by Fortinet.

Highlights

“From a student's perspective, I think people are interested in cyber security as a career. And as I said, I've worked in schools so I know that students are very interested in trying to break things. They are interested in the nuts and bolts, and it kind of appeals to that rebellious nature.”

“The benefit of being able to compromise a school environment for essentially deploying a ransomware attack is that that data is really important. And the disruption to that is quite an allure for attackers. And so we have seen, certainly in the last three years, this rise in schools becoming compromised and attackers using the data that they have access to as a blackmail tactic, essentially, to try and get schools to pay out.”

“You're kind of educating the future workforce by proxy as to the challenges and threats that they face. And as I said, those threats will not change as they emerge out of education and come into the workforce. Because, as I said before, the technologies and the platforms that you see in the workplace are pretty much identical to schools.”

Read the full transcript here.

Footnotes

• What is multi-factor authentication (MFA) fatigue and how do you defend against attacks?
• The ITPro Podcast: How can we stop insider theft?
• Harris Federation disables students' emails following ransomware attack
• Fortinet 2022 Cybersecurity Skills Gap [PDF]
• Cyber security certification vs degree: Which is best for your career?
• (ISC)2 launches free scheme to get 100,000 UK citizens into cyber security
• Stories from the front line: The secrets of the Red Team revealed

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