It’s now estimated that 70% of students worldwide are currently doing some form of online education, and South African learning may see some – or all – lessons taking place online for the foreseeable future.
For many institutions, the switch to remote learning was unexpected, leaving little time for them to mitigate against new cyber risk before their students went into the virtual environment. But as online learning becomes a new normal, there are certain risks to be aware of:
While large institutions such as universities likely have IT security capabilities, many schools and parents are now navigating the cyber risk environment for the first time. Education and awareness are crucial for their online security – they need to practice basic security principles and at the very least they should ensure that learning devices and applications are updated with patches, and that any antivirus/malware software is current and operational. It is also essential that any distance learning tools – both the front end used by students and the back end used by teachers – support SSL VPN and strong authentication.