Tackling Cybersecurity Challenges in a Large School District

Mark Racine, CIO of Boston Public Schools, and his team are constantly reminded of the importance of cybersecurity because numerous low-level threats occur consistently. Cyberthreats are increasing in frequency, mostly less complex attacks such as phishing scams, but Racine is concerned with the overall numbers. He adds, “We’re getting hit, at least, once or twice a day with really stupid low-tech phishing scams, but every time, we shake our heads like, ‘How does somebody think that this works?’ But they’re coming through every day.”

 

 

Deciding not to take low-level threats lightly creates an advantage. “We know that this is a constant threat that we need to think about. We need to think one step ahead of the game, and we don’t perceive ourselves as being bulletproof,” adds Racine.

Educating Everyone on Cybersecurity

Boston Public Schools have nearly 57,000 students and 100,000 parents, so a small IT department must rely on everyone taking part in educating themselves around cybersecurity. As Racine sees it, “Our effort has to be in making sure that our school community, the teachers, principals, and secretaries are fully educated on what they need to do and how they need to work with parents on it.”

The Importance of Security and Privacy

When it comes to edtech inside classrooms, many startup companies are concerned with getting in the door and providing user-friendly experiences for students and teachers. While that approach may seem reasonable, tech companies often forget the IT component and the overall cybersecurity issues at hand. It’s a problem facing many CIOs. Racine explains, “If you have a new startup that’s trying to get their feet wet and they’re not even thinking about security, it makes it very hard to have a conversation with them on how to scale up and how to grow into a district. It’s a non-starter when you go from one classroom to 5,000; the needs of security and privacy and data integrity are very different. It depends on the vendor. Sometimes, new companies in the field may not know that security is a major issue.”

Subscribe to edCircuit to stay up to date on all of our shows, podcasts, news, and thought leadership articles.