FBI Warns of Potential Cyber Attack Risks for Online Learning

Kids are either already back “in” school or will be back as of Monday, August 17 and the COVID-19 pandemic has currently made online learning the law of the land.  With that in mind, the FBI is asking that parents, students, and teachers be cognizant of cyber attacks disguised as instructional apps or programs.

The FBI is not indicating that there is a specific type of attack or scam to be on the lookout for, but is rather asking that time be spent and effort be made to not only spot potential cybercrime as well as be proactive in protecting their personal information and hardware.

We’ve all come across phishing attempts are pretty blatant and those are easy enough to recognize and avoid or delete once seen.  However, some cyber criminals are pretty smart and actively look for ways to genuinely fool somebody into opening an email or downloading an app that will then run through all of your personal information in an effort to find anything that they can monetize.

Parents must also remember think about how these people may try and fool students, especially young ones, into compromising their school or personal devices.  Make sure that the processes in place at your child’s school facilitate a secure exchange of classwork and other information between teacher and student.  If you’re not sure of exactly how this will work, take a moment to speak to the teacher and get your questions answered.

Remind children that school devices are for classwork and that they shouldn’t be downloading anything that is not school related or using the device to access non campus websites in which personal and especially credit card related information is being asked for.

Students nowadays have a district issued e-mail address that is secure and that they should use for online learning purposes.  Having those conversations and asking those questions now can save you a lot of headaches or worse down the road.