School staff will receive free cyber security training by the NCSC, supported by practical steps to help secure themselves and pupils online.
The NCSC’s website is full of resources for all staff and teachers, whatever their role. Advice covers governing staff, senior leaders, teaching staff and admin staff, making sure that any school with a dependence on online systems and IT can protect itself against cyber crime, as well as helping to ensure that children at school can continue to learn and work without disruption.
The NCSC breaks down cyber security measures into 10 pieces of technical advice that any business can implement, in order to secure themselves online and their IT systems:
- Risk management – the Board’s information risk management regime is central to a school or business’s cyber security strategy
- Secure configuation – unnecessary functionality in IT systems and programs should be disabled or removed, and any IT security vulnerabilities discovered must be patched or fixed immediately
- Home and mobile working – with COVID-19 forcing remote and online learning and working for periods of time that have never been necessary in the past, online security has become more prevalent than ever before. Risk based policies and procedures must also support mobile users
- Incident management – defining and implementing incident management processes will ensure that any security vulnerabilities or incidents can be managed swiftly and effectively
- Malware prevention – implementing IT security policies, defining user privileges and working with an experienced IT provider will all help to create a robust and secure IT system
- Managing user privileges – ensure that user privileges are set appropriately, to only provide users with access to what is needed. User privileges should be regularly reviewed and reset, to help limit the impact if user accounts are exploited by IT security breaches
- Monitoring – system monitoring will allow you and your IT partner to ensure that systems are being used as they should be, and to effectively respond to attacks
- Network security – auditing (or asking your IT partner to audit) your network systems can help to form policies and procedures for connected networks and websites, both on premise and in the cloud, plus regular penetration testing to identify and allow you to fix any weaknesses
- Removable media controls – ensure that media devices in use are required, as these can be common routes for malware to access networks
- User education and awareness – users are a critical factor in businesses staying secure, so regular and comprehensive training and updates are a must to stay secure
IT Backbone can help with cyber security testing, infrastructure installations and reinforcements, as well as providing ongoing support and managed services – email hello@itbackbone.co.uk or call us on 020 7199 2222 to talk to us about strengthening your IT security.
