Education institutions need to make cybersecurity a priority.

Despite the sector facing major challenges such as a lack of staffing, funding, and resources. Cyberattacks are no less frequent or less severe in education. In fact, they seem to be gaining ground in prevalence year on year as instances of breaches in schools and higher education are widely reported.

Unauthorized access to personal information would be particularly harmful to students, parents, and staff. All people with a right to seek compensation if the loss of their personal data caused them damage. 

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated these risks. With most education institutions having to innovate quickly to deliver most of their learning online via digital platforms, they had limited time to ensure they weren’t compromising cybersecurity best practices. This left them vulnerable to attacks.

To read more on the topic of innovation within the education sector, click here.

Learning from this experience, all education organizations need to consider the agility of their systems. If necessary, how quickly could they switch to a model where educators and students work from home whilst protecting their information assets? 

It’s a serious consideration: if your learning services and resources were to be made inaccessible by a ransomware attack, learning could grind to a halt.

Internationally recognized standard BS EN ISO/IEC 27701:2025, can help educational organizations effectively manage their private information.

Why is the Education Sector a Target for Cybercrime? 

There are four key reasons why education organizations are a target for cybercriminals.

DDoS attacks – Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are a common type of attack in every education business. This is where the attacker’s motive is to cause widespread disruption to the institute’s network, leading to a negative effect on productivity.

Data theft – This is another attack affecting all levels of education organizations because all businesses hold student and staff data, including sensitive details like names and addresses. This type of information can be valuable to cybercriminals for several reasons, whether they plan to sell the information to a third party or use it as a bargaining tool and extort money. Implementing a BS EN ISO/IEC 27701:2025 privacy information management system can help protect against the theft of private data.

Financial gain – Another motive for hackers carrying out an attack on an educational institution is financial gain. This might not be as high risk for state-funded schools, but with private institutions and Universities handling a large number of student fees, they’re a prime target for cybercriminals.

Espionage – The fourth reason why education is a target for cybercrime is espionage. In the case of higher education institutes like Universities, they’re often centres for research and hold valuable intellectual property. As a result, they need to be suitably protected. It is thought that science, engineering, and medical research by UK Universities have been previously compromised by hackers. And with plenty of time and money to fund them, professionals are often at the helm of these attacks.

Standards can help to provide a framework to protect your organization’s information assets so that they remain safe and secure.

Key Cybersecurity Standards for Your Education Organization

Since their inception in the early 1990s, global information security standards have grown in rigor and recognition. 

So too have information security threats and the best ways to manage them. 

BS EN ISO/IEC 27001 helps you implement a robust approach to managing information security (infosec) and building resilience. It advances cybersecurity processes, to protect the data of your students and educators alike and also helps you to continually review and refine the way you do this, not only for today but also adapt for future innovations. This standard reflects current best practices for information security management.

It provides specific recommendations to help you establish an information security management system (ISMS), monitor its performance, and implement improvements when necessary. It also enables external assessment and certification of an organization’s information security.

This standard is not unnecessarily prescriptive, allowing great flexibility in how requirements are satisfied and giving organizations the freedom to implement requirements in a manner best suited to your education organization.

If you’re involved with information security and understand the need to step up your organization’s approach to personal information handling, you should buy BS ISO/IEC 27701:2019 Kit. It helps educational organizations manage and protect their information assets so that they remain safe and secure.

To help education providers and learners alike cope with the enormous challenge of remote learning, standard BS ISO/IEC 23126:2021 specifies a framework to describe and organize learning resources in ubiquitous learning.

As your education business continues to adapt to new innovations, protect your information assets against external threats by adding these key cybersecurity standards to your collection today.

Discover BSI Knowledge

The BS EN ISO/IEC 27000 series and over 100,000 more internationally recognized standards are available with a BSI Knowledge subscription which can help build a culture of digital trust in your business. Our tailored subscription service provides flexibility, access, visibility, and control over the standards and insights your educational institution needs to achieve cybersecurity. Build your own custom collection and keep updated with any relevant changes to your standards strategy. Request to learn more.