How K-12 Schools Stay Safe Using WithSecure Elements
Think your school is safe from hackers because you’re in education?
The 954 K-12 schools that suffered ransomware attacks in 2021 prove that you’re more vulnerable than you may think.
Downtime alone cost schools a combined $3.5 billion in 2021 alone. And that’s not including recovery costs like replacing computer hardware, etc.
Hackers see schools as easy targets because:
- They’re rich in user data. Schools collect sensitive information such as full names, birthdates, credit card numbers, and social security numbers, for students, teachers, support staff, and administrators.
- They have an abundance of users. A large school system could have thousands of users, including students, faculty, support staff, parents, administrators, and even school board members. That means thousands of entry points.
- They’re vulnerable. Simple phishing and email scams are easy to pull off when the district uses only basic antivirus protection, which is often all that’s in the budget.
With your school system in mind, how would you answer these essential questions?
How confident are you that a student or staff member won’t fall victim to a phishing scheme?
How quickly could you identify, isolate, and respond to a cyber attack?
What would be the financial cost of resolving a ransomware attack or breach at your school?
If you can’t answer these questions – or you don’t like the answers – don’t worry. There’s a solution to fit your K-12 school’s needs and budget.
WithSecure Elements can help by:
- Notifying IT while automatically eliminating threats.
- Implementing hypervigilant endpoint detection to spot sophisticated attacks.
- Responding to threats with powerful, 24/7/365 threat responses.
- Isolating affected devices before they infect others.
- Avoiding common email, phishing, and other attacks.
- Allowing schools to renew or get cyber insurance coverage.
Let’s take a closer look at how your school system can benefit from WithSecure Elements’ services.
The Benefits Of WithSecure Elements For Your School
WithSecure Elements is a cybersecurity tool that helps schools add EDR technology, vulnerability management, and patching for Windows and third-party apps.
Here’s the how.
Closing The Gaps
Cybercriminals don’t need much to infiltrate your school system. All it takes is one little configuration error or a single ransomware-laden email and bad actors are in.
WithSecure Elements keeps your school from being an easy target by providing total protection to minimize the attack surface that allows hackers access.
This is done with a powerful combination of vulnerability management, endpoint protection, automated patch management, and cloud application protection.
Easily Locate Threats
WithSecure allows your IT team/person to identify actual threats and not waste time on tedious analysis. The capability for high-fidelity detection keeps IT from being bogged down with threats that aren’t real.
Quick & Accurate Response
A school system keeps a large amount of private data on a large number of people. It’s critical that threats are dealt with quickly and efficiently.
WithSecure Elements offers a comprehensive tool kit, plus, your school can access first-rate threat-hunting investigation and guidance 24/7.
Flexibility
K-12 schools have unique needs when it comes to cybersecurity and threat management. WithSecure Element’s customizable options let you pick and choose exactly which services you want/need to keep your system safe.
You also have options for usage-based plans or annual plans depending on your school district’s budgetary needs.
WithSecure Elements Endpoint Protection
Endpoints are the physical devices that communicate with a network, such as desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and other mobile devices.
Because endpoint protection is such an important factor in keeping your school system safe, it’s worth taking a deeper dive into what you can expect from WithSecure.
WithSecure Elements Endpoint Protection is just one module of their overall cybersecurity platform, but due to the nature of K-12 schools and the importance of keeping a large amount of personal data safe, we’ll look a little more closely at why your school needs this protection.
#1 – Reduced Loss Of Learning Time
A school district can lose anywhere from 3 days to 3+ weeks of instructional time with 2 months to 9 months’ time to recover.
The sophisticated antivirus and patching WithSecure provides means you don’t have to worry about downtime affecting the staff and students in your district.
#2 – Conquer Ransomware
You’ll get an extra layer of protection so staff, students, parents, and administrators won’t get locked out of devices or lose access to data and resources they need.
#3 – Prevent Zero-Day Attacks
If your school system is caught without enough of the right cybersecurity measures in place, student files, discipline reports, faculty and student birthdates, salary information, and much more sensitive data can be leaked before the breach can be patched.
WithSecure Elements ensures this doesn’t happen by sharing community-sourced data across devices.
#4 – Automated Patching For Windows & 3rd Party Software
WithSecure Elements Endpoint Protection has integrated patch management that will automatically block 80% of attacks, keeping your K-12 school district safer than ever.
What About Cyber Insurance?
Cyber insurance is a policy that provides a school system (or business) financial protection if a breach happens.
But, as the rate of cyber attacks against K-12 schools continues to climb, so does the cost of cyber insurance. And, in fact, many cyber insurers will not even offer a policy should an IT environment lack adequate cybersecurity protection.
In addition to the costs of remedying a cyber attack, another factor can exponentially raise the cost of being unprotected: a lawsuit.
If a student or staff member’s name and social security number are stolen, for example, they will likely face financial burdens as well as a lot of stress, time, and hassle to make things right. Some people may choose to sue the school system/district for compensation.
That’s just one possible scenario, but it’s one of the many situations that can cause your already-skyrocketing premium to go even higher.
The advanced protection that WithSecure Elements provides can actually help to lower your cyber insurance costs due to your school system’s lowered risk of attack.
Your Customized WithSecure Elements Solution
We partner with K-12 schools, providing WithSecure protection to detect, prevent and respond to a variety of common attacks schools face every day.
Our K-12 clients have chosen us to:
- Reduce cyber insurance costs.
- Avoid multi-million dollar, catastrophic breaches.
- Prevent system-wide downtime.
- Protect sensitive student and staff data.
- Proactively identify and stop attacks.
- Get peace of mind and confidence.
Best of all, it’s not only effective, but it’s also affordable for K-12 budgets — and you don’t need a whole IT team; even a lone IT director can manage it on their own.
If you’re not certain your school is well-protected, let’s connect on a quick call.
We’ll provide a customized recommendation for how to keep your school safe and secure, affordably.
