Cyber security

Cyber security should be high on the agenda for any school with a reliance on IT and online systems. Falling victim to cyber attacks can result in disruption to teaching and learning, financial loss, data breaches and can affect staff wellbeing.

Cyber security and cyber resilience both have an equal part to play in reducing the cyber risk to organisations:

Cyber security focuses on preventing hackers penetrating your IT systems
Cyber resilience is the ability of an organisation to protect itself from, detect, respond to and recover from a cyber attack

Taking a methodical and proactive approach to cyber security and putting in place basic safeguards can greatly reduce the risk to your educational setting.

October is Cyber Security Awareness Month

Cyber Security Awareness Month is an international initiative to raise awareness about digital security and remind us that there are simple ways to protect yourselves from online threats.

This month we are focusing on these ways to stay safe and secure:

Practical resources for schools
Use of strong passwords
Turning on multi-factor authentication
Recognise and report phishing
Keep up to date with learning
Reporting a school cyber incident

Free resources to help keep you safe

National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)

Cyber Security Toolkits for Boards are resources designed to help school board members govern cyber risk more effectively.

Passwords

Your laptops, computers, tablets and smartphones will contain a lot of your own education-critical data, the personal information of your students, and details of the online accounts that you access. It is essential that this data is available to you, but not available to unauthorised users.

Passwords, when implemented correctly, are a free, easy and effective way to prevent unauthorised users accessing your devices. This link to "Using passwords to protect your data" outlines 5 things to keep in mind when using passwords.

See also this infographic from the NCSC about Using passwords to protect your devices and data.

Avoiding phishing attacks

Phishing is a type of cyber-attack designed to trick you into 'doing the wrong thing', such as disclosing sensitive information like your username and password or clicking on a link that may download malicious content to your computer.

Email is currently the most common delivery method for phishing attacks. Phishing emails are becoming more and more sophisticated and often look genuine at first glance, but some can still be identified by poor spelling and grammar.

Learn more about "Avoiding phishing attacks".

Staff training

The NCSC has produced free cyber security training to raise awareness and help school staff manage some of the key cyber threats facing schools.

Sending and receiving secure emails

Norfolk County Council has produced some guidance on sending and receiving secure emails (PDF) [184KB] between your school and the County Council.

Other resources

Governor training

Click on the link to see more information about a Norfolk County Council Cyber Security course for governors.