The Russian invasion of Ukraine increases the risk of wiper malware spilling over to the US and our education infrastructure. You may remember NotPetya, which caused billions of dollars of downtime damage. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports that Symantec observed wiper malware was put in motion just hours before Russian tanks arrived in Ukraine.

WSJ Reports

The WSJ said: “The wiper malware—this version is being called HermeticWiper by researchers—could mark an escalation in cyberattacks against various Ukrainian targets, security experts said. Websites of government agencies and banks were disrupted on Wednesday, and on Thursday, that of the Kyiv Post, an English-language newspaper.”

“On Wednesday, Slovakia-based cyber firm ESET said it also detected the wiper strain on hundreds of machines in Ukraine, adding that timestamps indicated the malware had been created nearly two months ago in preparation for deployment.”

The WSJ noted that “On Thursday morning, CISA Director Jen Easterly tweeted a Wired magazine article on the 2017 NotPetya hack, which emanated from a Ukrainian accounting firm and caused billions in lost sales and other damage to businesses including FedEx Corp. and Merck & Co. Inc.”

“While there are no specific threats to the U.S. at this time, all organizations (including school districts) must be prepared for cyberattacks, whether targeted or not,” Ms. Easterly wrote.

Recommendations

So, Tech Reformers strongly recommends to:

• Make sure your backups work and test your restore function, not for just files but whole servers
• Patch all known vulnerabilities and test the patches
• Deploy strong MFA to as many employees as possible (some MFA can be easily circumvented).
• Step all employees through at least a 15-minute security awareness training module to keep them on their toes with security top of mind.

Also, warn your staff: cybercriminals will start new, devious charity campaigns that claim to help people in Ukraine. Be prepared for the wiper malware.

Cybercrime has become an arms race where cybercriminals constantly evolve their attacks. You, the vigilant school district IT pro, must diligently expand your knowledge to prevent intrusions. This includes protecting the district network and your cloud (your SaaS and Infrastructure providers). Staying a step ahead may even involve becoming your own cybersecurity investigator. Learn to forensically examine actual phishing emails. Determine the who, the where, and the how to adjust your defenses.

In an on-demand webinar, Roger Grimes, KnowBe4’s Data-Driven Defense Evangelist, hosts. He shows you how to become a digital investigator to fight cybercrime.

You will learn:

• How to forensically examine phishing emails and identify other types of social engineering
• What forensic tools and techniques you can use right now
• How to investigate rogue smishing, vishing, and social media phishes
• How to enable your users to spot suspicious emails sent to your organization

Register for an on-demand webinar sponsored by Tech Reformers. No waiting. So, get inside the mind of the cybercriminal. Learn their techniques, and how to spot phishing attempts and improve district cybersecurity.

At FETC, the Future of Education Technology Conference, Tech Reformers, a leader in K-12 Cloud,
is releasing TR | AppStream, a managed AWS AppStream 2.0 service. So, K-12 school districts can now offer virtually any application to students on Chromebooks and any device even with low bandwidth. Enabling all students to access high-end applications, TR | AppStream gives any time, anywhere access to, for example, Adobe Creative Cloud, Autodesk Inventor & Revit, and engineering and computer science applications from Project Lead the Way (PLTW). In sum, virtually any application that schools need students to access at home or in school, TR | AppStream makes it possible on any device. As a managed service, it’s no extra work for IT.

Target equity, the digital divide, and homework gap

While some think that Chromebooks and hotspots have solved the digital divide and homework gap, nevertheless students with only a Chromebook or just a hotspot don’t have equitable access compared to students who can use a full-featured multimedia computer and high-speed broadband at home. With the cloud, Infrastructure as a Service – IaaS, that opportunity gap disappears. A Chromebook or any home computer with an internet connection can tap into all the powerful applications. They stream from servers in the AWS cloud, all managed by Tech Reformers.

Heretofore, creating district platforms to allow virtual desktops or streaming apps have been too expensive and too difficult to manage for most school districts. Building out the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) has been a huge capital expense. The cloud offers a solution, but district IT staff may not have the time or the expertise to deploy and manage what is needed. But, there are success stories. The cloud billing model may seem fraught with risk so TR | AppStream has per student, flat-rate cost.

TR | AppStream is a fully managed service

AppStream combines AWS AppStream 2.0 with fully managed services focused on the needs of K-12. School Districts who just determine the applications and use cases they want for their students and how many students they have to access it. Therefore, no configuration or VDI environment. So districts pay a per-student price with no need to worry about infrastructure, IT workload, or streaming rates.

Tech Reformers has created a demo for you to see and test yourself right away. The demo contains free applications for demonstration purposes only. But, when trying, imagine offering licensed software to your students in a fast, easy-to-access portal. For example, you can leverage your Adobe licensing or PTLW commitment to extend usage beyond school to the homes of all students. Tech Reformers will customize to your needs. TR | AppStream can even enable districts to eliminate computer lab desktop computers. Allow students to access productivity, creative, computer science, and technical applications on their laptops.

Try for yourself

Sign up for immediate access to the self-paced demo, and, during FETC, we will be raffling off Tech Reformers Yeti mugs to registered users.

Also available to request are demos for Adobe Creative Cloud, 3D, gaming, or your request. You will get your environments after a setup period and be offered a walk-through.

And, we are looking for districts who want to expand access to all students to be customers this school year at a great discount to try the service. We welcome districts that want to pilot the solution. For equity, bring AWS AppStream 2.0 to your students.

For inquires, reach out to info@techreformers.com, or, if you are in Orlando at FETC, stop by booth 4221.

Tech Reformers is an AWS Partner. If you want help doing it yourself, our AWS Certified Architects help you get started.

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We are highlighting our partnership with OpenText. About 200 school districts use OpenText. OpenText was named a “Leader” in content management by both Gartner and Forrester.

Better yet, Tech Reformers offers the only fully hosted and managed OpenText solution designed for K-12. Furthermore, OpenText can integrate with your existing productivity suite.

At CITE, Tech Reformers will be also featuring our K-12 Cloud services not only for information management. We will share our managed services, hosting, and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Tech Reformers has proprietary AWS-hosted solutions for OpenText and App Stream 2.0. We have best-in-breed partner solutions for cybersecurity and disaster recovery.

So, please stop by our CITE booth at #704.

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Finally, we are having a special get-together. Please join us at our November 18th, 6-8 pm Happy Hour at Dive Bar.

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