School Board approves training to improve district cyber security

The Van Buren Public Schools Board of Education voted unanimously to pay $25,974 for three years’ worth of cyber security training services from KnowBe4 to keep the district safe.
Sean Garland, the district’s IT Network Administrator, explained his request for the services during Monday’s in-person school board meeting.
He said SET SEG (School Employees Trust / School Employers Group) recently conducted a cyber risk assessment of their education customers to determine the current state of preparedness with regards to phishing attacks, backup, and recovery of critical data and systems access.
He said their initial focus is on staff cyber security awareness. Malware and ransomware attacks are on the rise and insurance payouts to recover data have skyrocketed, he said.
Garland said email phishing campaigns are the most prevalent tactic used to deliver these attacks into a target network. SET SEG has recommended end-user security awareness training be implemented on an ongoing basis as a way to help mitigate these attacks.
Garland said several companies that offered these services were contacted and the three largest responded with demos.
Besides three months for free, KnowBe4 also is including at no charge a home-training course that anyone in the community can use for training in personal internet security. SET SEG recommended KnowBe4 for these services and negotiated a 25% discount for their customers.
The service is scheduled to begin at the start of the 2021-22 school year.
School Supt. Pete Kudlak said 12 school districts in the past 12 months have been cyber attacked with ransomware and had to pay $12,000 each to get their data back.
Garland said the district has a method now to avoid cyber attacks, but it is manual. He said they need to get the staff alerted, along with the board members. This will not be extended to students.
In other business at Monday’s meeting, the board:
• Approved the Wayne RESA preliminary budget as presented. Finance Director Sara Cortese said the RESA budget is a basic rollover from last year because income from the state is in doubt in all the school districts and everyone will be having budget amendments in the future;
• Was informed on details of the two Early Childhood Center technology contracts that total $216,410 that will be up for a board vote at the May 24 meeting. Rob Kakoczki of Plante Moran CRESA said there were ten bids on the two packages and recommended are low-bidder Digital Age Technologies for the first package and third-highest bidder Security 101 for the second contract. Garland said the first contract will be for the paging and bells system where the teacher also will have a microphone for voice and music and the superintendent eventually could do district-wide alerts that go into every classroom. The second contract is for the security system;
• Heard presentations from the staffs of McBride, Rawsonville, and Haggerty schools about education during COVID. “We have some kids we haven’t seen in a while. That’s the bottom line,” said McBride Principal John Leroy. Haggerty Principal Becky Ross said some children don’t know learning any other way than by tablet or phone. “That’s all they’ve had,” she said of the four-year-old, pre-school students;
• Discussed the COVID-19 Plan Reconfirmation, a procedure required every 30 days by the state; and
• Was informed that the board will be required to appoint a representative and an alternate to vote in the upcoming Wayne RESA election. The representatives are to be appointed at the May 24 meeting to take part in the June 7 election. Up for election is one, six-year term and those running will be revealed to the board before the next meeting.