Beating ransomware in schools across the UK

Education is the first line of defence against ransomware in schools.

There have been a number of recent news headlines about ransomware and the damage it's caused to businesses, hospitals and governments across the world. While these high-profile cases are being publically shared, the damage ransomware is causing to normal schools across the UK is flying under the radar. Education establishments suffer the most ransomware attacks of any sector, with one in ten education organisations having experienced ransomware on their network. The grim reality for the majority of schools in the UK is that rather than being a case of preparing for IF you get targeted by ransomware, it's now a matter of being ready for WHEN you get targeted.

Fortunately, help is at hand. Read on to learn how Smarter Interactive is helping schools fight the good fight and protect their network and sensitive pupil data from ransomware by educating users and implementing intelligent IT security.

The Challenge of Ransomware

Ransomware works by encrypting your school's data so that you can't access it again without paying the "ransom". Ransomware is so effective because it can be delivered through email, and hidden so that it looks like a normal attachment that you might expect to receive or hidden behind a link that you might not think twice about clicking. Because it's delivered in this way, it can avoid even the most intricate firewalls and lie in wait until an unassuming victim interacts with the email. The reason why it's growing to be a prolific problem in schools? A Lack of awareness and understanding around the threat of ransomware and how it is delivered makes the education sector an easy target for hackers.

The Smarter Interactive Solution

Smarter Interactive actively helps to protect schools from the threat of ransomware every day by approaching the threat in two distinct ways, each as important to Ransomware protection as the other:

1. Awareness  - being #clickclever 

The most common way ransomware attacks infect school networks is through email attachments being opened. This normally happens due to a lack of awareness of Ransomware and the damage it can potentially cause.

Smarter Interactive is helping schools to train their staff about the dangers of ransomware by providing security awareness training accessed through a simple web portal. A number of our customers have also been lucky enough to attend one of our cyber security seminars, hosted by our resident security whiz Danny Williams. Smarter Interactive has also helped schools identify possible ransomware-ridden emails by sending fake "phishing" emails to staff members, providing them with firsthand experience of what to look for.

2. Protection for when the worst happens

Smarter Interactive partners with SentinelOne, the world's best ransomware killer, in order to lower the damage ransomware can cause once it affects a school. Smarter Interactive has a number of customers on the platform and regularly detects and stops ransomware attacks trying to infect a school before they can. This platform is fully managed by Smarter Interactive so that the schools using the software can continue to work and teach as normal without having to worry firsthand about their security solutions.

The Results

Smarter Interactive's ransomware security solution is currently stopping an average of 15 ransomware threats per year for every school on the platform. If left undetected, those threats could have resulted in network downtime and the loss of child data, which in turn could prevent the school from operating effectively or safely.

Our #clickclever awareness training programs are helping to grow awareness of ransomware within education communities so that teachers and administration staff can successfully identify and delete harmful emails before they become a problem.

Learn more about #clickclever and SentinelOne with Smarter Interactive

To find out more about how Smarter Interactive can help your school defend itself from threats like Ransomware, get in touch with our specialists today or view our security solutions page by clicking on the button below.

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