Congressman Calls for Increase in School Cybersecurity Funding

Investigators and lawmakers are using the start of a new school year to call for an enhanced focus on cybersecurity.  

In March of 2019, the Federal Bureau of Investigations reported that hackers gained access to databases managed by educational product provider Pearson, which contained the names, birthdates, ID numbers, and even email addresses of students from more than 13,000 schools across the U.S. The perpetrator is still at large.

While speaking at one of the affected school districts in central New York, Congressman John Katko, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, compared our current data vulnerabilities to a pre 9/11 mindset, saying “We let our guard down before 9/11 and paid a dear price for it.”

Katko, the ranking member of the Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection & Innovation Subcommittee, plans to introduce legislation that would help make public systems more secure. Specifically, he mentioned that updating software at schools would go a long way.

Through penetration tests and risk assessments for localities, private companies, and federal clients, Windwalker has found updating software to be a simple, yet crucial step to safeguard networks. For more information on how Windwalker Group can help protect intellectual property, go to windwalker.com/services.

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