Focused Education Resources is committed to supporting school districts as you work to protect the privacy of students and their families, educators, staff, and your operations from the growing threat of cyber attack.
This section will provide a centralized resource where you will find the knowledge and tools to support you in every aspect of cybersecurity. This includes best practices to mitigate threats and to plan for a timely response. We will also let you know about events to create a safe space for sharing our experiences and lessons learned. We believe that by working together, we will all be safer.
Community & Information Sharing
Collaboration and information sharing are keys to success in cybersecurity. Technology is critically important, but a collective effort is needed to stay ahead of emerging threats.
This section will cover information for cybersecurity specialists – your technology leads – to facilitate the sharing of best practices on steps to mitigate or prevent a cyber attack, and how to gather effective threat intelligence.
Resources
The Being Cyber Secure In K-12 Checklist provides a snapshot of key steps for school districts to proactively build resilient systems that prevent, mitigate, and respond to a cyber incident.
Awareness & Education
This section will support you to develop a culture of cybersecurity within your school district, another important element for success.
It includes resources to empower staff to recognize cyber threats and take steps to mitigate them. When everyone gets on board, we have the best chance to prevent cyber threats and manage them early.
Resources
Fortinet Security Awareness and Training is an education version of the Fortinet Security Awareness and Training Service, made available to the K-12 sector at no-charge.
Prevent & Protect
The best offense is a strong defense. Fortify your school district’s defenses against cyber attacks by taking proactive measures. In this section, you will find information to implement robust security controls, risk assessments, and best practices to enhance your cyber resilience.
Resources
The Multifactor Authentication (MFA) Toolkit is an interconnected series of resources designed to help you implement Multi-Factor Authentication in your Microsoft 365 environment.
Detect & Monitor
Monitoring and early detection are crucial to help manage and mitigate the impacts of cyber incidents. This section provides insight into monitoring techniques and how to gather threat intelligence. It will also help you stay informed about the latest cyber threats, vulnerabilities, and mitigation strategies to maintain vigilance.
Resources
The Securing Your Microsoft Environments resource was co-created by Focused Education and Steeves and Associates, who recently ran a series of workshops on Securing Your Microsoft Environments. This is the first slide deck from that series. More workshops will be held in October 2024.
Respond & Recover
Despite every effort, your school district is hit by a cyber attack. Swift and timely response will be needed in both your operations and communications.
Preparation and planning in advance are critically important. In this section, we will provide incident response planning, recovery strategies and a crisis communications plan to support minimal disruption and timely restoration of operations.
Resources
The Incident Response Communications Checklist is designed to help school districts proactively manage communications following a cybersecurity incident.