When the sixth-largest school district in the United States announced in early April that hackers were holding its data ransom for $40 million, administrators everywhere paid attention.
The Fort Lauderdale-area district has 232 schools and a budget of $2.6 billion for the 2020-21 school year—seemingly, the district has plenty of resources to protect against cyberattacks. It also has thousands of students and staff who use hundreds of applications and technologies each day.
How do educators ensure that they keep students’ data, records, and personal information private and secure? And, on the flip side, how do they ensure that the integration with other systems remains seamless, so student data is always up to date, accurate, and accessible to teachers, students, parents, and district officials?
3 considerations for securing student data
1. Security
State and federal data privacy laws apply to school districts along with the vendors who supply hardware and software to them. But as educators, you need to ensure that their systems go beyond being legally compliant. You must work with companies to prepare for vulnerabilities and threats long before they occur.
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