One month after the Seattle Public Library's systems went down as part of a ransomware attack, the library is just beginning to restore services to staff and patrons.
Some resources are back and running, but the library is far from being fully functional.
After that is complete, the technology team plans to work toward restoring access to patron accounts, the library catalog, and other services, like free in-building Wi-Fi, computers, and printers, that are vital to community members.
It's still not clear when services will be fully restored, leaving many who rely on the library for access to these resources out in the cold.
The Seattle Public Library is just one of many public institutions that have fallen victim to cyberattacks.
A cyberattack last October has the British Library still scrambling to restore services more than nine months after the infiltration.
According to the Center for Internet Security nearly a third of U.S. K-12 schools in its network have been victims of a cyberattack.
Around the world, schools and libraries face an increasing number of cybersecurity threats and attacks targeted at disrupting and disabling critical networks, leading to the disruption of school and library operations, reduced bandwidth, monetary losses, loss of learning opportunities, and theft and leaks of student, staff, and library patron personal information, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
To combat this threat, the FCC recently voted to approve the Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program, a three-year initiative that will provide up to $200 million in Universal Service Fund support to pay for advanced firewalls, endpoint protection, identity authentication, and monitoring systems.
Investing in Schools, Libraries Is Key The federal funding fills a gap in school and library budgets because, with everything on their plates, it's challenging for these organizations to make cybersecurity a priority, says Johnathan Kim, director of technology for the Woodland Hills school district in Pennsylvania.
The average school spends less than 8% of its technology budget on cybersecurity, and one in five spends less than 1%, according to the Center for Internet Security.
Participants in the pilot program will receive funding on a per-student or per-library basis to help cover the costs of enhancing cybersecurity equipment and services, according to an FCC spokesperson.
Funding will be split among rural and urban large and small organizations, with an emphasis on funding programs for low-income and tribal applicants.
The FCC encourages consortia of schools and libraries to apply together, as consortia have buying power that can help reduce costs and allow less technically savvy organizations to partner with better-resourced schools and libraries.
State and local government entities, including educational service agencies, are not eligible for discounts or funding under the pilot program, but they can serve as a consortium leader for eligible schools and libraries.
Don't Have to Have a Big Budget While increased funding is important, not all cybersecurity success for schools and libraries depends on having a big budget.
Things to tackle first could include evaluating and establishing cybersecurity policies and training staff and students to handle information security.
David Vignery, director of technology at Lawrence Public Schools in Kansas, echoed Godwin's sentiment.
Helping the community understand what threats they actually face, and how they could be impacted, is important to getting buy-in.
To drum up support and educate the district in Lawrence, Vignery created a security awareness group to work on an incident response playbook that helped different groups understand what kinds of events could occur and how they would be affected.
This Cyber News was published on www.darkreading.com. Publication date: Thu, 27 Jun 2024 22:10:09 +0000