OPINION | PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
DDoS attacks: Is your school prepared?
RM Education’s Mark Conrad (pictured) explains what schools should know about the threat and consequences of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack
I
magine going into a bank. On a normal visit, you’d walk in, go to the counter, deposit a cheque
or withdraw some money, and leave. But imagine instead that just as you set foot in the door, a thousand other people all rush in at once and tried to mob the counter, each of them shouting and demanding attention from the overwhelmed bank staff . Then imagine that only a fraction of those thousand people are legitimate customers that have a genuine need to be there – everyone else is just a nuisance, a distraction. Regardless, the bank is overcome and no one is able to access any services. And this, essentially, is what a DDoS attack does; it denies access to services by fl ooding a target with requests until it is no longer able to serve anyone.
Q1: Could it aff ect my school?
The simple answer is: yes. One of the biggest examples of DDoS to make recent headlines was the takedown of Microsoſt ’s Xbox Live and Sony’s PlayStation Network last Christmas; millions of users woke up on Christmas Day to fi nd that their shiny new consoles would not connect to the PlayStation
Network or Xbox Live.
Each of the
sites had been fl ooded with
traffi c, which in turn prevented anyone from accessing the
complementary online platforms provided by the
gaming giants - this meant users could not register their consoles, access the full set of game features and were
10 |
www.edtechnology.co.uk | @Educ_Technology
essentially leſt with a very expensive plastic box for a week until the attack subsided. While DDoS attacks aren’t always on this
scale, large events aren’t actually that rare; in fact, they are more common than you might think and unfortunately they are on the increase. In 2012, 35% of companies reported
disruptive DDoS attacks. In 2013 this fi gure rose to 60% and is still increasing. These attacks aren’t one-off occurrences either; over 45% of those interviewed reported being attacked on multiple occasions and 17% said they had simply lost count! (Neustar, 2014.)
Q2: What impact could this have on my school?
Schools are feeling the eff ects of DDoS in multiple ways, primarily in terms of the content they can access. The websites you need your Year 6 class to log on to can easily be put out of service if the provider or host isn’t protected and is under attack. Or, if your internet service provider doesn’t have robust systems in place, you can experience inconvenience ranging from slow bandwidth to a complete loss of service – and an attack can mean losing access to key services for hours, if not days. While schools are more commonly inconvenienced by DDoS attacks because of something happening to their providers, they can be targets in their
nc
own right as well. School pupils are oſt en the most tech-savvy amongst us and launching a DDoS attack is potentially well within the realms of their capability. The bragging rights associated with an attack that brought down their school’s virtual learning environment or parent
services is something we hear about more and more.
A simple Google search can provide enough information to enable one of your pupils to launch such an attack. As the vast majority of schools are not-for-profi t institutions, they are oſt en lulled into a false sense of security by thinking that they are unlikely to suff er such attacks. DDoS targets are mainly aimed at the massive profi t-churning organisations, right? Wrong. That may have been true back in 2000 when Amazon and eBay were amongst the fi rst targets of DDoS attacks, but this simply isn’t the case anymore.
Q3: What should I be doing about it?
Firewalls and other industry-standard security systems are a critical part of any network defence, but DDoS attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated and your IT partner’s traditional forms of defence may not be up to scratch. So where does this leave schools? Should you be going out and buying a dedicated DDoS mitigation platform? We don’t think so; they are expensive and complex to set up. Instead, schools should be carefully assessing their choice of cloud services and internet providers to ensure their partners have them covered in this respect. As trends in education increasingly refl ect a gradual move to the cloud, the increased reliance on the internet – as well as soſt ware and applications which are not installed on devices – means that a DDoS attack or the theſt of data could place you in a very diffi cult position or even blight your school’s reputation. It could leave you unable to carry out the most basic tasks, from browsing the internet or registering pupils, to more critical functions such as processing new admissions.
So what can schools do right now
to be prepared? Well, fi rst of all, don’t panic. Challenge your cloud services and internet providers to make sure they’re keeping up with internet security and preventing DDoS attacks. And fi nally, educate your pupils and encourage responsible use of the internet and IT. Remember, DDoS attacks and other forms of hacking are actually illegal. ET
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74