5-2-2023 Special Edition Tuesday Tech Tips: Don't Get Phished!

 Special Edition Tuesday Tech Alerts: Don't Get Phished! 

About 90% of the Time, Cyberattacks Are Successful Due to Human Error

Cyberattacks, such as phishing emails, are a real and serious concern for school districts. School districts are prime targets for cybercriminals, as we manage a wide range of personal data and have limited resources for cyber protection. Based on state regulations and recommendations from our external auditors, we've identified and prioritized our need to increase our users' capacity to recognize phishing emails. This is a critical skill- click HERE to read about how phishing emails have resulted in some school districts being effectively incapacitated.  March 2023 saw the highest ransomware victim count in two years, up 60% according to our insurance carrier.

As part of our ongoing efforts to protect staff and student data, the Office of Technology recently partnered with Knowbe4, a Phishing Drill Software System. Knowbe4 will help us:

• provide feedback to users on how to avoid being a victim of phishing
• run small-scale drills through 2023-2024, and
• increase engagement with staff regarding how to recognize and respond appropriately to phishing.

In March, we worked with Knowbe4 to obtain baseline data by conducting a district-wide drill consisting of a spoof phishing email to all of our staff members. This email asked users to click on a link and supply their Google password for a verification check. 2,909 users across all bargaining units read the email. Their responses to it are shown in the graph below. As you can see, we have room for improvement.

The point of the drill was NOT a "gotcha." It was to see how we're doing, and to help us plan with Knowbe4 on how to improve. 

Our goal is to empower and educate our users--there is nothing punitive about this undertaking.

In the coming weeks, the poster pictured below will be shared with school staff members either at a staff meeting, and/or as a flyer in your mailbox. Please take a few moments to review it to see how to recognize and avoid phishing emails. These skills don't only apply to your GCSD email- your personal email is likely a target of phishing, too!

Going forward, our plan is to run several small-scale drills through 2023-2024. Just like fire drills and lockdown drills are important and necessary to protect our staff and students, these drills are part of our plan to protect our staff and student data. The results from these drills will help us target where more training is needed.  Plus, users may get digital feedback from Knowbe4 if they did something wrong, such as clicking on a suspicious link, and this feedback includes teaching these users how they can avoid making a mistake again.

Thank you for your efforts to protect our staff and student data!

Image used courtesy of the Dept. of Agriculture