New Initiative in the U.S. to Improve Cybersecurity for Education Technology
With the closure of schools due to Covid-19 in spring 2020, the use of educational technology rapidly increased in the United States. According to Instructure’s 2023 LearnPlatform report, the year before the pandemic, districts used an average of 895 tools, but by spring 2020, this number rose to 2,263. The report also noted that in the 2022-23 period, the average use of educational technology tools climbed to 2,591. This rise has underscored the importance of enhancing cybersecurity in schools.
In April, the U.S. Department of Education launched a council to help coordinate federal, state, tribal, and local efforts to protect schools’ digital infrastructure. As part of a collaboration with the University of California, the Department has initiated a new effort aimed at improving cybersecurity measures in educational technology by fostering cooperation between vendors and cybersecurity experts. Last week, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education Cindy Marten discussed the contents of the Partnership for Advancing Cybersecurity in Education (PACE) project, which aims to enhance cybersecurity in schools.
Marten mentioned that major technology companies, rather than local governments and consumers with limited resources, should take responsibility for strengthening cybersecurity. “PACE aims to proactively address cybersecurity vulnerabilities that could disrupt students’ learning and school operations through ransomware attacks by combining the expertise of cybersecurity professionals with the innovation of educational technology vendors,” she said.
Following the release of the White House’s National Cybersecurity Plan, Marten announced that PACE, developed to bring together security professionals and educational technology vendors, aims to take significant steps to ensure that educational technology companies secure sensitive student and staff information stored by schools.