2025's Most Hostile Cyber Battleground: The Classroom
November 20th, 2025
❓What:
New cyber intelligence pinpoints the education industry as the most targeted industry globally this year, with more than 4,000 weekly attacks per organization (yes, you read that right).
This figure represents a sustained 24% year-over-year increase in weekly attacks (~3,500 weekly attacks in 2024).
Because educational institutions often lack the resources for robust security counter-measures, adversaries have made them the target of attack, viewing them as "target rich, cyber poor" (as coined by CISA's K-12 Cybersecurity Initiative).
Translated for, and through the lens of a bank robber; which bank are you robbing, the one with a vault secured by a reinforced steel and concrete composite door (other industries), or the one with a vault protected by an unlocked wooden door with a doggy flap (education industry)?
Recent high-impact breaches — including PowerSchool, Chicago Public Schools, and Columbia University — show how credential compromise, software vulnerabilities, and poorly secured vendor ecosystems expose millions of student and staff records.
⚠️Impact:
These attacks trigger large-scale data theft (SSNs, medical and academic info, financial data), learning disruptions, major financial costs, regulatory exposure, and long-term identity-theft risks for minors.
A breach can violate privacy laws like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), leading not only to identity theft for minors, but damage to institutional reputation, and lasting financial and emotional harm for families as well.
The education sector is particularly vulnerable due to limited budgets and resources, heavy reliance on third-party systems, and inconsistent cyber hygiene, making each compromise high-blast-radius and high-cost.
💡Recommendations:
Enforce phishing-resistant MFA everywhere, especially for vendors and privileged accounts.
Accelerate patching, especially for widely used EdTech/vendor platforms.
Implement immutable offline backups and test restoration/disaster recovery regularly.
Deploy EDR/MDR/XDR + network segmentation to contain lateral movement.
Perform vendor risk assessments, contractually require security controls, and monitor third-party vulnerabilities.
Conduct regular IR tabletops and comprehensive cyber awareness training for staff and, where feasible, students.
Align security programs to structured frameworks (e.g., NIST CSF) to improve resilience and prove maturity (for cyber insurance too).
Read the full article HERE