Digital infrastructure

Public, Private Sectors Take Measures to Boost Cybersecurity of K-12 Schools

The White House is establishing the Government Coordinating Council, a new cyber policymaking body for K-12 institutions. The council is meant to assist schools with responding to cybersecurity attacks and facilitate collaboration between various levels of government.

Meanwhile, the Department of Education and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency wrote three digital infrastructure briefs to guide vendors, service providers and school administrators in protecting education networks.

Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, explained that the government initiatives are meant to obstruct attempts to steal students’ and teachers’ sensitive information. She noted that the White House is working with industry to expand the education sector’s access to cybersecurity resources.

Private-sector efforts include a $20 million Amazon Web Services grant program aimed at providing “security training resources and no-cost cyber incident response assistance” to U.S. school districts and state education departments.

Cloudflare announced a similar initiative to provide schools with free zero-trust solutions while Google updated a guidebook for K-12 cybersecurity, Nextgov/FCW reported Friday.