- ED issues tipsheet on ransomware
- Jill Biden to visit Florida community college
- Same credits in a shorter semester
- Ramping up efforts to help students with special needs
ED issues tipsheet on ransomware
The massive shift to online learning because of the coronavirus has also opened new opportunities for criminals. Reports of higher education institutions – including community colleges – falling victim to ransomware have prompted the U.S. Education Department to issue a tipsheet on how colleges can better protect themselves and respond to such attacks.
“Schools are an attractive target for criminals looking for privacy information, research data, financial information, and intellectual property,” the department said in an announcement.
“Phishing” is the primary way most cyber criminals use to gain access to account credentials that they then use to install and spread ransomware across a network. Some institutions have lost access to critical systems and data, impacting their ability to operate, ED said.
The department recommends that colleges implement the following cybersecurity best practices:
- Establish a data back up process, ensure the backups are available. and accessible and store the backups offline.
- Implement multi-factor authentication to mitigate account compromises.
- Regularly patch hardware and software.
- Continuously monitor the institutional network to detect unauthorized access and malware.
- Create and update your Incident Response Plan.
- Ensure training resources emphasize phishing, as it is frequently the compromising entry point for ransomware attacks.
Further details on what institutions can do to protect themselves are available on the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s information page on ransomware.
Colleges that suspect they are a target should report the incident immediately to cpssaig@ed.gov and FSASchoolCyberSafety@ed.gov. Include the following:
- Name of the institution
- OPEID – School Code
- Date the incident occurred (if known)
- Date the incident was discovered
- Technical details of the ransomware (if known)
- Extent of the impact
- Remediation status (what has been done since discovery)
- Institution points of contact
ED offers the following suggested remediation steps if your institution falls victim to the attack:
- Preemptively shut off network and systems to limit the spread of the ransomware.
- Bring systems back up only after they have been checked and cleared of infection.
- Block IP addresses that were related to the attack.
- Force reset credentials for potentially affected accounts.
- Perform forensic analysis on server, network, and application logs from recent weeks.
- Restore data from backups.
- Notify law enforcement of the criminal attack.
“We continue to monitor this situation and will post additional information as appropriate,” ED said.
Jill Biden to visit Florida community college
Dr. Jill Binden has kicked off a back-to-school campaign in eight swing states that includes a stop on September 2 at Pasco-Hernando State College in Florida.
The long-time English professor at Northern Virginia Community College and wife of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden will hear from students and educators about the challenges they are facing and will discuss Joe Biden’s plans to improve education and student success.
According to the campaign, the tour will include virtual roundtables with educators, parents and students, as well as other virtual and in-person programs to engage with educators and those working to address food insecurity.
Same credits in a shorter semester
In an effort to better accommodate students to encourage them to enroll, a growing number of community colleges are extending their usual enrollment deadlines, shortening courses and offering several start dates this fall.
To close its projected enrollment gap of 10 percent to 18 percent, the Community College of Rhode Island this week announced that it will hold a late-start, 11-week condensed term, with classes starting September 28 and concluding with the end of the traditional fall term.
“The pandemic has required innovation in how we teach and work, maintain enrollment, and provide multiple opportunities for students to access higher education,” the college said in a statement. “‘Last Call for Fall’ is an example of innovating to meet the needs of our students and our college.”
Meanwhile, Holyoke Community College (HCC) in Massachusetts is offering two “Flexible Fall” start dates in addition to its traditional fall semester start next week. For most students, the semester at the college will begin September 8. For those seeking more flexible academic options, HCC is also running two sessions of accelerated, full-credit classes for select courses that will begin on September 28 and October 28. The classes that start later this month will run for 12 weeks; those that start late next month will run for seven. All fall courses will conclude by December 16.
No matter the start date, all HCC classes this fall are offered in one of three formats: online, blended remote and blended face-to-face.
“We know how unsettled everyone’s lives are due to the pandemic, especially the lives of families juggling jobs and childcare and parents who may not yet know where they will be working or where their children will be for school,” said Rachel Rubinstein, HCC vice president of academic and student affairs. “We hope that by offering more flexible fall options that students will be able to find a schedule that works best for them, and that students who need to delay decisions about college can do so without fear that they will miss out on an entire semester.”
Ramping up efforts to help students with special needs
College of DuPage (COD) is expanding efforts to help students who require support services for online instruction, including testing, closed captioning, use of assistive technologies, audio recordings, interpreting and scribing.
During the spring term, more than 1,500 students requested support services, and this fall more than 2,000 students requested accommodations, according to the Illinois college.
For hearing-impaired students, live teaching formats over the internet can be difficult for students if not done correctly, said Samantha Salvato, manager of access and accommodations at the college. COD has provided each of these students with American Sign Language interpreters with real-time captioning for their classes.
COD’s 13 interpreters teamed to prepare for live interpreting in their virtual workspaces at home, the college said. Industry standards call for high-speed internet, a private room, a black backdrop, an external microphone, a camera and special software.
“In addition to interpreting live classes, we are using technologies where interpreters can video record themselves and then insert themselves into a pre-recorded video,” said Sheryl Ebersold, an accommodations specialist. “This has allowed us to make sure that deaf and hard-of-hearing students are able to receive the same assistance they would have received on campus.”
Since classes moved to an online format, the college has captioned more than 500 videos.
“All of our interpreters taught themselves how to caption through numerous training sessions and got themselves up to speed without missing a beat,” Ebersold said. “Auto-captioning, such as what is provided as a default for the Zoom, WebEx and Google Hangout conferencing platforms, is only 85 percent correct at best. And if the professor has a poor connection or a poor microphone, the auto-captioning accuracy decreases. Our aim is 99 percent accuracy, so that means we do it ourselves.”
