New College Institute CyberSAFE Car Visit to AHPS
On August 6, the New College Institute CyberSAFE car visited Alleghany Highlands Public Schools. The car’s visit was courtesy of Dr. Ken Russell, New College Institute Chief Innovation Officer and Teh-Way Lee, NCI Director of Technology Integration. Essentially, the specially-wrapped car carries a moving computer network they can take to schools in the Commonwealth area to give them the experience of a cyberattack in real time without compromising their systems.
“We’ve developed a network that is miniaturized, where it will fit in the back of the car,” Russell said. “The idea is very simple: The car has a network in it so it can actually be used as a training device in classroom mode and conference mode.” Conference mode is when the car goes to an expo or a conference. People can walk up to it, interact with it and see what a ransomware situation looks like. In classroom mode, school staff participate in other training exercises.
“You can walk them through [an organization of computer files called a] file tree and say, ‘OK, look at this file, how it’s changed and look at this new administrative role that’s been created, and look at this one that’s been deleted, and watch what happens in real time when someone deletes a role,’” Russell said. “That makes it very real and something you would never want to practice on your own network.”
Some of the outfitting of the car is still in progress, but the NCI team is still taking their program to schools all over the area to speak with students and staff about things to watch out for. Russell says they are able to focus on cybersecurity hygiene and anything one might see included in a cybersecurity incident response plan.
Cybersecurity is a growing concern across the United States, and cyberattacks pose a significant risk to education systems everywhere. Attacks can threaten the integrity and accessibility of learning platforms. With the increasing reliance on digital tools and online learning environments, educational institutions can be prime targets for malicious actors who aim to disrupt operations, steal sensitive data, or propagate misinformation.
The consequences of cyberattacks extend beyond immediate disruptions; they can compromise the privacy of students and faculty, erode trust in education and impede the educational progress of learners.
AHPS has been active in cybersecurity preparedness and maintains a cybersecurity incident response plan. AHPS administrators were also involved in detailed cybersecurity training in August 2023 and benefited from the CyberCar visit in August 2024. While no plan is perfect, AHPS has followed cybersecurity protocols in a variety of activities including use of its student information system PowerSchool, issuance of school-division Chromebooks, upgrades to various networks, and other activities.
“It’s really about awareness,” said NCI Chief Innovation Officer Ken Russell, PhD.
He said what many don’t understand is how an establishment responds to an incident is crucial.
”The idea of experiencing an event before it happens is the crux of it all,” he said. “From my experience, how you respond to a critical issue is very serious, because if you are not prepared, then when it happens in real life, you are not ready and you panic.”
The institute began discussing how they can share effective ways of response planning. This led to holding onsite events designed to give administrations the opportunity to experience how a cybersecurity incident could unfold, and how an incident response plan (IRP) can help minimize the loss of information and disruption of services.
Russell likened it to a family discussing with children what to do if there’s a fire. “What we wanted to do is help schools -- public high schools in particular -- put together a response plan, so they know who to contact, when to contact, how to contact and how to structure their communications with everyone when there’s an incident,” he said.
He said what they realized is that different parties who would need to communicate, don’t always communicate effectively now. “What we were seeing is administration on one side and IT on the other, and they’re pleasant in the hallways, but they don’t sit down and talk about things that are germane to the health of the organization,” Russell said.
Enter NCI’s CyberSAFE program into the equation. Experts now meet with administrations, gather both parties in the same room, sit them down together and work on an IRP together. “You’ve got to find a way to gather each side together to have a disorienting dilemma -- that moment where they confide, ‘What do we do about this?’” Russell said.
Sometimes, Russell said, they do what’s called a tabletop exercise, where they walk through what someone else has gone through, but in a way that’s meaningful to the audience. “I think that’s why some of the folks have been responsive to the CyberSAFE program -- because it helps them not just with a plan, it helps walk them through an experiential incident that makes sense,” he said.
The goal is to get in front of cyberattacks in K-12 school districts. The institute is doing so by partnering with leading technology companies, legal teams and state and federal agencies. They’re also partnering with schools themselves.
“Usually, you hear about some multi-billion-dollar company that’s losing $200,000 an hour or something crazy like that,” Russell said. “It’s hard to make that fit into the reality of what a rural high school in Virginia must deal with. So, our committee is writing our own scripts in an effort to convey what an incident may actually look like for them.”
They focus on the circumstances, roles, players and actors. “We’re going to create videos that are relevant and germane to the rural high school in Virginia,” Russell said. “We’re taking what’s out there and shaping it to fit our needs for the Commonwealth.”
Dr. Shannon Fuhrman, AHPS Director of Technology and Accountability, has been a member of the NCI CyberSAFE Planning Committee for the past two years (since inception). She has been instrumental in leading the technology team to develop an Incident Response Plan as well as assessing and evaluating security protocols within the organization.
Fuhrman, a veteran of the Alleghany Highlands Public Schools and the historic Covington City Public Schools, also planned the cybersecurity awareness training AHPS conducted in 2023.
The school division is cooperating with Mountain Gateway Community College in the development of a laboratory school for high school students focused on information technology including cybersecurity applications as a career pathway. The lab school plans to be fully operational in 2025-2026.
With approximately 2,700 students, the school division is jointly funded by Alleghany County and the City of Covington.
AHPS news and events are regularly updated on Facebook at AHPublicSchools and Instagram at ahpublicschools. Information is also available at www.ahps.k12.va.us.
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