“It’s the processes and procedures, working with all the other customers. We have to get them to understand the importance of planning. One way is to do tabletop exercises to practice to see what we would do in the event of an event,” said Mark Gabehart (Round Rock ISD). As Mark’s voice filled the respectful silence as he spoke, his turn of phrase caught my ear. Whatever did he mean by “tabletop exercises?”
In this blog entry, we’ll discuss the value of tabletop exercises for cybersecurity, disaster recovery, and business continuity. You will also find a complete game that you as a technology leader can use right away.
Government agencies, businesses, hospitals and universities are the frequent targets of staggering data breaches that can affect millions of people. Two examples:
Individuals' personal information is scattered to unknown reaches of the globe.
Experts say K-12 schools are also at risk — from outside threats and students who want to stir up trouble — as they rely more on technology for day-to-day operations and incorporate more software, apps, online programs and Web-based testing into classes.
“I don’t think there’s a school district in America that doesn’t have important digital assets sitting on a computer somewhere that needs to be protected,” said Michael Kaiser, executive director of the National Cybersecurity Alliance. “We know schools sometimes don’t like to report incidents. Responding right away and bringing in law enforcement should be encouraged.”
Adapted from Source: Cybersecurity in K-12 Education
There can be various consequences to not securing data, such as the following:
“Process. The process has to involve HR, Business Office, and M&O,” said David Jacobson (Lamar Consolidated ISD). The Executive Director of Technology for Round Rock ISD agreed. “It’s the processes and procedures, working with all the other customers. We have to get them to understand the importance of planning. One way is to do tabletop exercises to practice to see what we would do in the event of an event,” said Mark Gabehart (Round Rock ISD). In these situations, it is important to 1) recognize the need; 2) clarify the depth of the hole the organization is in; and 3) present a plan to never be in that hole again. Make sure your district has an equipment replacement plan. And that is then followed by a disaster recovery and business continuity plan.
“There are genuine resources out there to put plans together. It’s been frustrating to find resources, but now I know about various resources. We have a disaster recovery plan, but I didn’t realize how huge the business continuity plan was. How do we continue doing business?” It’s unsettling to realize that if you have no equipment to load all your backup data into and make it work, your district can’t overcome the disaster. What’s worse, the cost of recreating a network operations center (NOC) would be exorbitant, not to mention duplicating network/internet connections to district locations.
To help you think through these issues, here are a few documents shared at the Technology Leadership Summit:
Conducting a needs assessment remains a critical first step. Moving forward from that benchmark assessment can involve developing a design of how data flows in the district and how it can best be maintained, backed up, and set up for disaster recovery/business continuity.
Did you know that if data is encrypted and a data breach occurs, you are not obligated to report it? This is the power of data encryption and can potentially spare the District from unnecessary litigation and expense. This is known as an encryption safe harbor. Texas defines a data breach in terms of sensitive personal information only if the data items are not encrypted (Source: Data Breach Charts, Baker-Hostetler).
An April 19 car burglary resulted in the exposure of student information. An external hard drive containing letters associated with students who applied to the [name of campus removed] was stolen from a teacher's car. The letters contained applicant names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, phone numbers, and previous school district information.
The District discovered that a number of employees had their names, Social Security numbers, disability plan information, and salary information available on a publicly accessible website. Employees who were enrolled for disability insurance had their information posted in April 2011 on the Employee Benefits/Risk Management website.
Instance #1: Two students may face criminal charges for hacking into the School District's network server and accessing a file with 14,500 student names and Social Security numbers. The students are a high school junior and a senior. Students who attended during the 2008-2009 school year may have been affected.
Instance #2: Hackers accessed a District server and were able to collect the personal information of students, teachers and other employees. There were names, Social Security numbers, and addresses from approximately 63,000 students and 9,000 teachers on the district's internal network (myepisd.org). The District was not aware of the breach until a computer security company noticed hackers bragging about breaking into the District's system. Names, ethnicity codes, and student ID numbers for 26 students were posted by hackers.
If your school hasn't thought about cybersecurity as a growing concern, it's time to learn what the threats are and what you should be doing to keep your school, and its data, protected.
If you are an IT Director, you may be called upon to transfer files in a secure manner. In school districts, there are several ways to accomplish that. Each way is briefly explored below and solutions offered.
This approach entails creating an encrypted conduit through which unencrypted files will be transferred from a server or your computer on a nightly basis. You will need to be able to automate this process and rely on a secure File Transfer Protocol (sFTP) solution or FTPs (read how sFTP is different from FTPs). This may entail you purchasing and implementing a secure FTP solution on a district server outside the firewall.
Server Side sFTP Solutions
Client Side sFTP Solutions
Some of the features most need include:
Using a Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) or open source equivalent (GPG), such as OpenPGP Encryption Tool (GoAnywhere MFT for automated encryption). You can write scripts that automate this using PowerShell if on Windows or other solutions if on GNU/Linux or Mac. Exploring the use of scripting solutions for data encryption is beyond the scope of this webinar.
Some have eschewed this approach in the favor of an sFTP solution or simply encrypting data using a tool like 7zip or SSE (Step 3) with AES-256 encryption (more on that below).
"A virtual private network extends a private network across a public network, and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network" (Wikipedia).
When we talk about using a VPN in a school setting, we're not discussing consumer-level VPN tools like those used for individual protection.
Some solutions in use in Texas schools:
Like many, if not all of you, I found myself spending way too much time on filtering issues. Block this, unblock that, getting teachers by-pass rights, etc. I finally just got fed up with all the time it was requiring. When I started looking at trends I realized we were using the filter as a student management tool and not for its intended purpose. Let me be very clear, we are still filtering and complying with CIPA and other mandates.
What we are NOT doing any longer, is blocking all the multitudes of other sites that might have inappropriate material. There are many sites, YouTube comes to mind, that have a lot of great educational material but also have content that is inappropriate at school.
If I block YouTube, then many of the school safe sites, like the browser Kidzui, Gaggle.net, and many others that use videos from YouTube, will not work. So, I did something drastic. I deleted the entire custom “blocked” sites in the filter. These are the sites that we add over time to the blocked library. There were literally thousands. The custom block library had become unmanageable. It was a total senseless mess....
The bottom line is that we are no longer using the filter as a student management device. We still block clearly inappropriate sites that have absolutely no educational value. The rest is up to proper monitoring and when that fails, treating the issue as a discipline issue, which it is. We have put the responsibility back on the teacher in the lab to monitor students effectively. Source: Texas Technology Director
This voluntary Framework consists of standards, guidelines, and best practices to manage cybersecurity-related risk. The Cybersecurity Framework’s prioritized, flexible, and cost-effective approach helps to promote the protection and resilience of critical infrastructure and other sectors important to the economy and national security. Watch a long video overview | Watch short video
View Framework in Google Sheets format (find most up to date copy at NIST)
MITRE ATT&CK™ is a globally-accessible knowledge base of adversary tactics and techniques based on real-world observations. ATT&CK stands for Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge. MITRE started this project in 2013 to document common tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that advanced persistent threats use against Windows enterprise networks.
The ATT&CK knowledge base is used as a foundation for the development of specific threat models and methodologies in the private sector, in government, and in the cybersecurity product and service community. Watch video shown right to learn more.
Listen and Learn about MITRE's ATT&CK "CyberThreat Encyclopedia"
Personal Tip: Try Firefox Quantum with the Multi-Account Container, which allows you to group your browser cookies. This prevents one site from spying on you while you are looking at another (Facebook does this, as do many other sites). Try privacy add-ons, too.
Need to encrypt using public/private key encryption tools that are compatible with PGP/GPG? Consider GoAnywhere's Open PGP Studio for Windows, Mac, or GNU/Linux computers. GoAnywhere also offers a Secure File Transfer Protocol (FTP) solution.
"Virtual Private Networks provide an important element of privacy protection for users," Electronic Frontiers Association says. . .VPNs [are] one of the most effective tools for protecting privacy when using the Internet, due to the degree of anonymity they provide when accessing online services.
*Cost associated, usually approx. <=$50 annual
*Cost associated, usually approx. <=$50 annual
This is a question you will get. Make sure you keep your response simple and make it a requirement of dealing with sensitive data.