Five cybersecurity priorities every school needs to get right

Cybercriminals are teaching schools and universities a costly lesson in cybersecurity.

The recent cyberattack on Canvas showed how a single weakness in a trusted platform can create operational chaos across campuses. It also highlighted an important reality: protecting the campus network alone is no longer enough.

Here are five cybersecurity priorities every IT team in the education sector should focus on to reduce risk, strengthen resilience and keep learning uninterrupted.

Why the education sector offers a high payoff with relatively low effort

K-12 and higher education institutions hold some of the richest collections of sensitive data outside healthcare and finance. Student and staff records, financial information, research data, intellectual property and cloud learning platforms all have value to cybercriminals.

At the same time, education environments are difficult to secure. Thousands of students, faculty, contractors and alumni access systems from different devices, networks and locations. Unlike many large enterprises, education IT teams often have to protect this complex environment with limited budgets and staff.

That combination makes education a high-value target with many possible entry points. Attackers do not always need advanced techniques to succeed. A stolen password, a phishing email, a compromised account or a vulnerable third-party application can be enough to gain access.

Why third-party risk needs urgent attention

The Canvas breach shows why third-party risk can no longer be treated as a secondary concern. Rather than attacking a single university directly, ShinyHunters exploited weaknesses in Canvas’ Free-For-Teacher account program, which allowed for less stringent identity verification while sharing production infrastructure with institutional customers.

That matters because education now depends on a growing web of external platforms. Learning management systems, student information systems, cloud applications and SaaS tools are deeply connected to daily operations. When one trusted platform is compromised, the impact can spread far beyond a single school. In the case of Canvas, the platform supported more than 30 million students and educators across nearly 9,000 institutions worldwide.

The 2026 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report reinforces the urgency. Breaches involving third parties increased by 60% over the previous year and now account for 48% of all reported breaches. That is why organizations need to address third-party risk before the next disruption.

Schools need stronger visibility into who has access, which third-party tools are connected and how quickly they can contain damage when a trusted platform becomes the point of attack.

Five cybersecurity priorities for educational institutions

Traditional security approaches built around perimeter defense are no longer enough in environments where identities and cloud access now define the perimeter. The goal is not only to stop threats but also to limit their impact, restore operations quickly and keep learning uninterrupted.

A practical way to approach this is to strengthen security across five areas.

1. Prevent unauthorized access before attackers get in

Most attacks begin by exploiting identities, not firewalls. Every student, lecturer, contractor, administrator and third-party vendor with access to university systems expands the attack surface.

Action plan: Start by strengthening identity security with multi-factor authentication, least-privilege access, conditional access policies and regular reviews of user accounts and permissions. Just as importantly, review who has access to connected platforms such as learning management systems, student information systems and collaboration tools. Removing unnecessary accounts and limiting privileged access can significantly reduce opportunities for attackers.

2. Reduce third-party and cloud risk

The Canvas breach demonstrated that schools can be affected by weaknesses in platforms they do not own. Every SaaS application, cloud service and external vendor should be treated as part of the security perimeter.

Action plan: Maintain an inventory of third-party applications, understand what data they can access, review vendor security practices and continuously monitor integrations for unusual activity. The more connected your environment is, the more important third-party governance becomes.

3. Detect threats before they become a disruption

Modern attacks rarely happen all at once. Attackers often spend days or weeks moving through environments before triggering ransomware or stealing sensitive information.

Action plan: Security teams need visibility across identities, endpoints, cloud applications and network activity to detect suspicious behavior early. Consolidating monitoring into a single platform and using automated threat detection helps identify compromised accounts or unusual access before they escalate into a campus-wide disruption.

4. Prepare for disruption before it happens

Even the strongest security controls cannot eliminate every risk. What separates resilient institutions is how quickly they can respond.

Action plan: Every school should have a tested incident response plan that defines roles, communication procedures, escalation paths and recovery priorities. Ask practical questions: How will exams continue if the learning platform becomes unavailable? How will staff communicate if email is offline? Which systems must be restored first to resume teaching? Planning these scenarios before an incident dramatically reduces recovery time.

5. Build resilience, not just security

Cyber resilience means continuing to deliver education even when systems are under attack.

Action plan: This requires secure, tested backups, automated recovery processes, continuous vulnerability management and security tools that can isolate compromised devices or accounts before attacks spread. The objective is not simply to prevent breaches, but to contain them quickly, minimize operational disruption and restore normal learning as fast as possible.

How Kaseya can help build effective security operations

K-12 schools and higher education institutions often operate 1:1 device programs, giving every student and faculty member a dedicated device while IT staffing struggles to keep pace.

• Building stronger security starts with understanding where your risks exist. Kaseya’s vPenTest automates internal and external network penetration testing to uncover exploitable vulnerabilities before attackers do. Rather than simply identifying missing patches or known issues, it shows how weaknesses could be combined in a real-world attack, helping IT teams prioritize the most critical remediation efforts.
• Cloud applications have become another common entry point for cyberattacks. SaaS Alerts by Kaseya continuously monitors Microsoft 365 and other SaaS environments for suspicious activity, risky configuration changes and compromised accounts. By providing real-time visibility and automated response capabilities, it helps schools detect and contain threats before they spread.
• Email remains the leading delivery method for phishing, ransomware and business email compromise attacks. INKY uses AI-powered email protection to detect advanced phishing attempts, malicious links and impersonation attacks before they reach users. It also provides visual warning banners that help students and staff recognize suspicious messages, reducing the risk of successful social engineering attacks.

Together, these solutions help K-12 schools and higher education institutions identify vulnerabilities, secure cloud applications and stop email-based threats, giving lean IT teams greater visibility and stronger protection across their entire environment.

The lesson every school should take seriously

Cyber resilience depends on identifying and addressing security gaps before attackers can exploit them. Regular penetration testing, continuous SaaS monitoring and advanced email protection help educational institutions reduce risk, strengthen their security posture and respond to threats more effectively.

Watch our on-demand webinar covering the 10 penetration testing findings attackers exploit first and discover how to identify and address these vulnerabilities before they put your environment at risk.