Building cyber resilience within educational organizations is imperative to protect sensitive student, faculty, and research data and ensure operational continuity. Academic institutions are shifting toward complex, hybrid, and multi-cloud architectures, making them more susceptible to cyber threats like phishing and ransomware. To effectively safeguard against these risks and others, schools, colleges, and universities must move beyond traditional legacy systems to an adaptive, holistic data protection approach. Here, we explore the SLED sector’s vulnerabilities, common cyber attack vectors, and how strategic solutions like Veeam Data Cloud can enhance cybersecurity resilience.
Education Sector Vulnerabilities and Cyberattack Impacts
Increasingly, attackers use sophisticated AI-driven algorithms and ransomware-as-a-service to encrypt and hold protected student, faculty, and financial data hostage. Data protection vulnerabilities in education settings frequently arise due to having a widely distributed user base (on-campus/remote), inadequate IT support, and a dependence on legacy systems and applications. Hackers leverage system age and ecosystem complexity to find unpatched software, easy-to-access backups, outdated firmware, and even newer cloud services that are targeted for encryption and exfiltration of sensitive and legally protected personal information. Maintaining the status quo can lead to bigger security problems down the road. and with AI and post-quantum technology coming, vulnerabilities will worsen.
Common Cyberattacks and Impacts on K-12 and Higher Ed Organizations
Sophos’ State of Ransomware 2024 report stated that “34% of attacks were by way of phishing or malicious emails and 32% by way of exploited vulnerabilities.” The study also concluded that “71% of backup compromise attempts were successful” in higher and lower education organizations. Sophos also said the mean cost in 2024 for lower education organizations to recover from a ransomware attack was $3.76M, more than double the $1.59M reported in 2023. The mean recovery cost for higher education organizations was over $4M in 2024.
Simply knowing about these evolving threats and why a K-12 school or college may be an easy target can help you build a more resilient and secure cyber environment. Below are the most common attack vectors:
- Microsoft 365 services and email: These cloud-based services are among the most widely used and targeted applications. Users are typically unaware of cyberattack principles and tactics such as phishing, so they are likely to fall prey to attacks and open the door to bad actors.
- Targeted ransomware attacks: Educational institutions are frequently targeted by ransomware because they rely on legacy systems, lack robust cybersecurity protocols, and hold valuable data like student records and cutting-edge research and development (higher-ed) that drives monetization of intellectual property.
- Exploitation of distributed remote learning: The COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of remote learning has created new vulnerabilities. Cybercriminals often target online platforms and remote learning tools, which increases the risk for K-12 schools and universities.
- State-sponsored attacks: Some higher education institutions, especially those that conduct government-sponsored research, are targets of nation-state actors who seek sensitive research data, intellectual property, or personal information for espionage purposes.
- Valuable digital assets: Education organizations have hundreds of thousands of personal records for current and past students, faculty, and staff, including names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, financial details, and more. These can be sold on the dark web so bad actors can profit financially. Having disjointed cyberattack detection and response tools and under-resourced cybersecurity staff doesn’t help matters either.
“Assess to Address” Education IT Ecosystem Technical Debt
Routine health checks, including system scans, backup and recovery testing, security audits, and penetration testing, can reveal weak spots that a cybercriminal could exploit. For example, most attacks target backup infrastructure or legacy applications such as Microsoft Active Directory and Microsoft 365.
While EntraID is newer in the education sector, Active Directory (AD) is also widely deployed to identify and authenticate users, making it a primary target for attackers who seek network access to sensitive data. Attackers prefer target environments with high user volumes, legacy systems, fewer security personnel, and less mature cybersecurity defenses.
How K-12 and Higher Education Organizations Can Reduce Cyber Risk
Transitioning to a modern and fully managed data protection platform like Veeam Data Cloud —which includes backup and recovery of Microsoft 365 and EntraID data — provides resilience across every type of on-premises, hybrid, and cloud workload. You can also conduct a complimentary Veeam health check to identify any security and resilience gaps.
Veeam Data Cloud’s end-to-end data security, recovery, and portability are core platform capabilities. In addition, continuous monitoring, management, and incident response capabilities automate proactive actions that reduce the risk of data loss or compromise. Below are the reasons to take Veeam Data Cloud for a test drive:
- Microsoft 365 service resilience: According to the Shared Responsibility Model for cloud services, the educational institution customer is 100% responsible for the backup and recovery of Microsoft 365 and EntraID data, not Microsoft, the cloud service provider. Veeam Data Cloud delivers data security, immediate recovery, and portability enterprise wide. Automated backup, testing, and recovery functions ensure fully functional and continuous operations.
- Simplify governance and compliance: Veeam Data Cloud is secure from the inside out. It tightens access controls with multi-factor authentication (MFA), strict password policies, and automated backup policies. In education, migration from Active Directory to Microsoft Entra ID is crucial for enhancing security, improving user experience, and streamlining identity and access management.
- Develop a comprehensive incident response plan: Planning ahead for potential security breaches is essential. A solid business continuity plan includes an incident response plan that lets everyone, from IT teams to school administrators, know their role when a crisis strikes. Regular dry runs can keep everyone on their toes and ready to act quickly when (not if) there’s a disaster or serious breach.
- Prioritize data encryption and backup: Data security is key, so encrypting all sensitive data stored or in-motion protects student and faculty data. Plus, don’t forget data backups! Automate them, do them often, and ensure that they’re stored securely to bounce back quickly in case something goes wrong.
Why Veeam Data Cloud?
Veeam Data Cloud is a fully managed, SaaS data protection solution for hybrid and multi-cloud workloads. Here’s why educational organizations should consider modernizing now:
- Enhanced data protection enterprise-wide: Implementing strong cybersecurity measures helps protect sensitive student and faculty data from unauthorized access and breaches. This includes personal records, financial information, and proprietary research data.
- Improved operational continuity: By safeguarding against cyberattacks, educational institutions can ensure continuous operation without disruption. This is crucial for maintaining the integrity of educational services and minimizing downtime1.
- Regulatory compliance: Robust cybersecurity practices help educational institutions comply with data protection regulations, such as GDPR and FERPA, thereby avoiding legal penalties and maintaining stakeholder trust.
- Confidence without complexity: Veeam Data Cloud uses a cloud-native design that provides the best protection for Microsoft 365, Azure, and EntraID and is ready with policy-driven simplicity.
- All inclusive protection and predictable: Veeam Data Cloud is an all-in-one service that includes backup software, infrastructure, and storage, keeping costs low and predictable.
Strengthen Cyber Resilience
As educational organizations continue their digital evolution, building cyber resilience across complex IT environments is crucial to protecting their valuable data and ensuring operational stability. A strategic, multi-faceted approach — embodied by solutions like Veeam Data Cloud and supported by proactive assessment, automation, and continuous monitoring — can substantially and economically strengthen an institution’s cybersecurity posture.