Cyber Safety Tips for Educators
According to Microsoft’s Global Threat Activity Tracker, from July to August 2020 more than 8 million malware incidents were detected with the education sector being the most affected. (Berkeley, 2020)
Tips to protect yourself and your students from cyberattacks
- Don’t use a public WiFi network on the device where you save all your students’ information.
- Use your professional e-mail for work and not your personal one.
- Change your passwords frequently and use strong ones, whether for your professional e-mail or device you use for work.
- Enable two-factor authentication, and always keep track of when and where you log in to your accounts.
- Protect your device with an antivirus to detect viruses or malwares, and guide your students do the same.
- Use end-to-end encrypted communication to prevent intrusion.
- Implement the Least Privilege Principal while sharing documents with students.
- If you have student data stored on your device, make sure to back up the data.
- Use cloud service for document sharing.
- Put a password on files that contain your students’ personal information as an extra layer of protection.
- Verify the legitimacy of e-mails before opening them or downloading their content, and guide your students to do the same.
- Log out from all accounts once you’re done.
- Provide your students with safe and trustworthy website suggestions on cyber-security measures.
- Use well known platforms that guarantee the students’ privacy while collaborating online.
- Avoid using flash drivers to share data with your students.
- Follow your institution’s cybersecurity measures and policies.
As we are caring about our student safety in real life, it is also important for us to to take care of their cyber safety.