Education
in their area. So, there are a lot of people who can be involved in delivering security, and a lot of moving parts that have to all work in order to maintain security across all those assets. In practice, budget for IT security can be a challenge as well.
While every organisation will have regulations and requirements to meet around data privacy and security, the lack of dedicated staff and understanding can make it more difficult to get support for spending. Tose organisations may also rely on third-party providers, like a local authority or national provider, for their requirements. With so many moving parts and potential points of influence involved, getting started with education providers can seem impossible. Yet many of these organisations will need help to understand and respond to CSRB.
Looking at risk To make headway here, start by looking at risk. Ask how the organisation manages security today, and how they plan ahead? If they run their own IT and security, follow up on how they plan ahead around risk and what challenges they face in understanding what their spend delivers. Secondly, does the organisation have a process in place to respond to breaches, and does the team have a prepared plan for reporting issues or communicating with stakeholders? While the majority of schools and colleges will have a plan in place, they may not have updated this to reflect the greater requirements that CSRB has in place. With so many risks and potential issues to consider, and limited
Understanding the opportunity Te first question we have to ask is why education providers are so much more likely to be affected by a cyber breach. It is not due to lack of effort or understanding - when you are dealing with pupil data and privacy, you understand how sensitive the data is and how important it is to protect that data. But actually managing the infrastructure is a huge issue, and each organisation will have its own problems and challenges to address. While all the providers involved need to be secure, primary and
secondary schools are very different to colleges or universities. As the age of pupils goes up, the size of the network and the volumes of IT assets involved will tend to go up as well. As networks grow, so will the chance that someone will directly support that network within the organisation. A primary school might have a teacher who knows more about tech than others, who takes responsibility for security on site, while secondary schools and colleges might have an IT manager responsible for those operations. Colleges and universities will likely then have more specialist staff who think about IT security separately from other IT operations and networks. Behind these education providers, there will also likely be teams
from other public sector organisations that also support and oversee security. For example, a local authority or council may be responsible for providing security support to schools and colleges
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resources and time to make changes, helping customers prioritise should be your first priority. Looking at potential problems before they become breaches makes it easier to fix vulnerabilities. Tis risk operations approach can fit well with any managed service around security that you offer, so you can help customers plan ahead. Reducing the cost to manage security is always going to be a welcome offer when all public sector organisations are being asked to cut their spending, so offering a fast and proactive service that reduces risk should be welcome. For larger organisations, where risk management and security
programmes are more advanced, delivering a managed risk operations centre service should help that internal team to reduce spending on security management. Automating areas like patching and fixing misconfigurations can also make life easier for those internal teams, helping them to cut security spending and protect systems. This also makes it easier for teams to demonstrate the impact that their security controls have on potential threats. Helping your customers demonstrate the monetary impact that their work has can make it easier to get more support for further improvements, particularly around new technology projects like AI. Every organisation in the education sector has to provide a safe,
secure environment for learning. Taking a risk-based approach that understands the potential cost for any issue, and then getting ahead of those problems before they take place, can help schools, colleges and universities avoid cyber breaches in the future. Tis change in approach, from reactive clean-up to proactive prevention of issues, should help organisations meet their requirements around CSRB, reduce their costs, and deliver long-term service revenues for their partners.
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