Va. (WDBJ) – As students and teachers prepare to head back to school next week, school districts are doubling down on cybersecurity
It follows a nationwide cyberattack on the learning platform of Canvas at the end of the last school year that left local school districts scrambling. WDBJ7 spoke with local IT leaders and an educational technology expert about what they’ve learned and how they’re working to move forward.
“I got multiple alerts on my phone with actual screenshots and people saying they could see where a whole new screen had been put up in the Canvas splash page with the threat actor saying this system has been compromised,” said Roanoke City Public Schools Executive Director of Operations, Wesley Williams.
It was a scary end to the school year for Roanoke City and Pulaski County Public Schools.
A nationwide cyberattack on Canvas—an online platform where schools post assignments and grades used by school districts across Virginia—disrupted finals and last-minute grading. Local IT teams were forced to go “all hands on deck,” cutting ties to the platform to isolate the threat.
“As soon as we found out about what was going on, we pulled the site. But inside of Canvas, we had lots of other things connecting. So we severed all those connections to things like PowerSchool so they couldn’t get into anything,” added Pulaski County Public Schools Director of Technology, Lincoln Whitaker.
“We kept it offline for longer than a lot of the surrounding divisions so we could ensure that we were doing our due diligence, monitoring the communication that Canvas was giving us and bringing it back online when we felt that the risk had been mitigated as much as possible,” Williams said.
With school starting next week, both districts are moving “full steam ahead” with Canvas, but with a renewed focus on security. RCPS is utilizing a federal grant for a complete security audit and implementing a secure single sign-on partnership. Experts said in an increasingly digital world, teaching students and staff “cyber literacy” is the most critical defense.
“Being able to understand these tools and have AI literacy and cyber literacy are critical skills for individuals to thrive in our global society,” closed Dr. Pamela Gilchrist, Director of K-12 Programs and Innovation Lab at Virginia Tech.
IT leaders in both school districts advise students and staff to protect passwords, lock computer screens, and remain highly vigilant of suspicious emails ahead of the new school year.
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