POLITICO MORNING CYBERSECURITY: ADDED RISKS
As President Donald Trump continues ordering significant cuts to CISA and the Education Department, concern for increased cyberattacks against school districts is top of mind on Capitol Hill and in the education sector.
“President Trump and Elon Musk’s reckless approach to dismantling agencies like the Department of Education and CISA is undermining our ability to protect our schools and communities from cyber threats,” Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) told MC in a statement. She noted that cyberattacks against schools have become increasingly sophisticated in recent years and warned against “forcing our schools to do more with less.”
While cyberattacks against K-12 schools continue to rise, the threat actors’ sophistication and timing has also increased over the last 18 months, according to a report released this month from the Center for Internet Security and the Consortium for School Networking.
Traditionally, the Education Department has partnered with agencies like the FBI, the National Security Council and CISA to highlight cybersecurity best practices, coordinate risk mitigation strategies and increase visibility to free and low-cost cybersecurity resources.
But those efforts are at risk, given sweeping cuts to both the Education Department and CISA.
The push to increase cybersecurity efforts at schools was slow moving even under the Biden administration, said Doug Levin, co-founder of the nonprofit information-sharing organization K12 Security Information eXchange. He described it as cooperation that was “really still emerging.”
But conversations have ceased completely since Trump returned to office, he said.
“I fear now we’re back to square one,” Levin, who served on CISA’s federal Cybersecurity Advisory Committee, told MC. “Unlike the cybersecurity advisory committee I was on for CISA, where I got a notice, frankly not a very nice notice, but a notice that the committee was disbanded, we essentially have been ghosted by the Department of Education.”
Levin said before communication with the Education Department ceased, they were trying to set a date and time for their next meeting — which would have been the first meeting in the new Trump administration.
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