Any organization or business that has computers should be securing their data. However, that statement is even more true (if that is even possible) if your organization has computers that are accessed by a wide number of people. A prime example is schools – from elementary schools to universities, school computers typically can be accessed by a wide range of people.
However, many schools also have restricted budgets and overworked staff and security is all too often not a focus. Consider these recent examples in schools in the United States.
Laptops stolen from Springfield schools
Ten laptop computers were stolen from the Keifer Alternative School in Springfield, Ohio on June 30th. These laptops all contained information about students with disabilities, but not social security numbers, Springfield City Schools Interim Superintendent Don Thompson claimed. The school district sent letters home to parents of students who were affected following the theft.
The laptops belonged to employees of the district’s special education department, including psychologists. These employees had relocated from the South High School building to the Alternative school. Clearly the new school didn’t have adequate physical security. Having disk encryption installed on computers would have solved the data breach problem. While the schools would have had the monetary loss, there would have been no loss of secure data.
Employee data stolen from school
Canyons School District officials in Utah are investigating the disappearance of a drive that very likely contained the personal information of more than 6,000 current and recent employees. The lost information includes addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and Social Security numbers.
The Canyons School District (CDS) is a new district in the state of Utah. Originally part of another School District, CDS broke off on their own and was scheduled to go live this summer. Work, however, is still in progress, with technical staff still installing computers and phones; installing wiring; etc. Amidst this chaos, the drive was lost. The drive should have been encrypted – which it might have been, the school actually has no idea if it was or not.
The district reported the incident to police. But absent evidence of foul play, police have no plans to investigate. This is one more reason to secure your data – the support from law enforcement will be limited because often they have no evidence to work with in solving the crime and locating the data. Full disk encryption secures the data even if the disk is removed and loaded into a controlled machine. Now (also known as “too late”) the district is taking steps to safeguard sensitive information, developing new policies and procedures and building a secure network for file transfers.
Alertsec for Schools
Alertsec Xpress administration is designed to offer hassle-free deployment and set-up. Alertsec Xpress is pre-configured with a “best practice” setting to offer a secure, yet user friendly, implementation. The low cost of Internet based encryption, combined with administrative ease makes it perfect for school systems!
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