The Government could pay for a minimum standard of protection for school technology, Waikato Principals’ Association president, and principal of Marian Catholic Primary School, John Coulam says.
Coulam’s comments are in response to news that 36 New Zealand schools were hacked in a global operation that saw cyber thieves sell passwords and other entry methods to 70,000 servers on the black market.
“Our main aim is to ensure our pupils and staff are safe and protected from this type of attack. Robust safeguards from such attacks needs to be in place to protect computer servers – but it’s expensive.”
“My own school is well-protected, but others may not have the money. At present, community good will is topping up the inadequate funds provided, but it’s not the answer.
Not all communities can afford this. It costs a lot to have professional protection, with a person to keep your server up to date each week.”
Coulan suggests one option to resolve this could be for the Government to fund a minimum standard of protection.
“Then schools could network to bulk buy servers, which would make the problem more affordable.”
Hamilton’s Deanwell School has already called for an expert after a letter from the Ministry of Education saying the school had been affected by the latest hack.
An IT contractor told principal Pat Poland the school might need a $5000 system check or to rebuild the server, and Poland has asked another company for a second opinion and quote.
“As a principal, I want to make sure my system’s secure but I don’t want to spend $5000 unnecessarily,” he says.
“I’m an educator. I don’t know what the potential threats are.”
Although most of the school’s critical pupil data is in the cloud, he understood cyber theives could essentially take the data on servers hostage and force the school to pay to get it back.
Ultimately, Coulam says schools have to be extra careful because they hold sensitive information, including medical details and parent contact details.
“You don’t really want a third party getting hold of that.”
He wants to see a minimum standard of protection for school networks and an approved list of network managers for schools that don’t use Government-owned company N4L.
Source:
- Supplied
- stuff.co.nz
- Image: a57.foxnews.com
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