School Districts are certainly not exempt from the growing concern for cybersecurity nationwide. Our storage and maintenance of student information places an increased burden to protect the safety of minor populations. In light of the many ways allocated funds can be used in a school district, cyber breaches of information can often appear to be a remote risk to address. However, as demonstrated by New Mexico’s Albuquerque Public Schools, while not an everyday concern, cybersecurity can be a costly one. Following a January 2022 cyber incident in Albuquerque and its subsequent fallout, New Mexico is pursuing a federally backed initiative to establish a statewide student network. Check out the link for more information regarding New Mexico's solution to addressing cybersecurity!
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New Mexico's Solution to Cyber Threats
A new initiative in New Mexico, called the Statewide Education Network, aims to connect public schools through a broadband network to boost student learning and cybersecurity. The network, which is being implemented in phases, allows students to share resources and information and to access educational websites. It also aims to reduce cybersecurity risks through monitoring and tools to minimize the impact of distributed denial of service attacks — a type of cybercrime that overwhelms a server, network or site with malicious traffic to keep users offline. The initiative has $500,000 in backing from the Federal Communications Commission’s E-rate program. Albuquerque is one of the first school districts in the state to participate, according to an August announcement from New Mexico’s Office of Broadband Access and Expansion.
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