Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township Combats Ransomware with SecurityIQ

Personalized security awareness education and network of trained security champions creates district-wide, cyber-alert culture

Madison, WI, June 17, 2018 – InfoSec Institute, the leading provider of IT security education and workforce security awareness training solutions, announced the Metropolitan School District (MSD) of Wayne Township, Indiana selected SecurityIQ for district-wide security awareness education. Pairing SecurityIQ with the district’s personalized learning techniques and an internally-developed network of trained security champions, MSD Wayne significantly decreased their phishing attack rate and ransomware susceptibility.

Before SecurityIQ, MSD Wayne experienced an onslaught of four ransomware attacks, one of them crippling an applications database. For Pete Just, MSD Wayne’s CTO, this was the warning and opportunity to strengthen his district’s security strategy. He enrolled all faculty and staff in SecurityIQ awareness training to strengthen their social engineering defenses. Since then, the district has been ransom-free for 18 months. The success of MSD Wayne’s program draws on Just’s former years as an instructor. He pairs these four education best practices with SecurityIQ’s capabilities to boost learning outcomes:

1) Data-Driven Insights

It all starts with appraising each staff member’s knowledge about phishing and malware risks using SecurityIQ’s learner assessments and phishing simulations. “We teach our faculty to tailor their student learning through actionable classroom data,” said Just. The same holds true when educating his staff district-wide. “If we want to teach them something new, we first assess what they know, rather than making them sit through a three-hour training.”

 2) Personalized Learning

Sponsorships Available

Sponsorships Available

Sponsorships Available

Applying the same 1:1 personalized learning approach that helped his district boost student graduation rates, Just leverages SecurityIQ’s massive training library to automatically deliver modules tailored to each staff member’s assessed security aptitude and role. The SecurityIQ Content Library for Education specifically addresses educator security risks and compliance requirements for FERPA, COPPA and more. Important (Read more...)