How Cloud Monitor Helps Centennial School District Combat Account Takeovers

In our latest webinar, we explored real-world cybersecurity and online safety incidents, focusing on strategies that K-12 technology staff can use to prepare for hidden digital threats. Our guest speakers Sal Franco, IT Director at Buckeye Elementary, and Fran Watkins, Technology Manager at Centennial School District, shared their first-hand stories with ransomware and data loss incidents that tested their teams. They also discussed the recovery steps they implemented to strengthen their district’s defenses.

This blog post examines two separate account takeovers that Fran Watkins investigated on Centennial School District’s servers. The first involved an account takeover of an inactive account that he quickly shut down. The second incident was a suspicious login attempt from a student in Russia. While this was not an actual account takeover, it highlights the kind of behavior IT teams should carefully monitor. 

MS-ISAC Alerts Fran Watkins of a Potential Account Takeover

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One morning, Fran received a call from MS-ISAC, a cybersecurity organization that offers support, resources, and real-time network monitoring. They informed him about suspicious activity detected on Centennial School District’s network, specifically involving an inactive account that they suspected was being used by a threat actor. 

Acting quickly, Fran advised his team to quarantine the server associated with the suspicious activity. Fortunately, Fran’s networks were segmented, and this server was only responsible for controlling the heating and cooling systems, so any potential impact was limited. 

Segmenting your K-12 district’s network enhances security by isolating sensitive data and critical systems, making it harder for attackers to move freely if they gain access. It also helps limit the spread of malware and reduces the risk of widespread disruption, protecting students, staff, and school operations.

The following day, Fran and his team at Centennial examined their system logs to investigate this incident further. While their analysis showed that the activity didn’t affect systems beyond the one server, they did confirm that an unused account had been accessed and compromised. 

The solution was simple. Fran used Cloud Monitor by ManagedMethods to quarantine and remove the account from his domain. With this single action, he was able to restore the server back to its original operations and the potential crisis was averted. 

This incident underscores the value of MS-ISAC’s proactive alert. Their quick notification allowed Fran to shut down the account takeover within minutes, gaining him peace of mind by the following day. Although the impact was minimal, it highlights how valuable timely alerts and rapid third-party response can be in securing K-12 networks. 

Staying Ahead of Potential Overseas Account Takeovers with Cloud Monitor

Fran experienced another account-related incident when Cloud Monitor alerted him to a student logging in from a foreign country. The Sign-In Locations Map indicated that a student was accessing Centennial’s network from Russia. 

Within just a few clicks, Fran located the account and confirmed that the student activity and login were legitimate. The student was visiting family in Russia, which explained the foreign access.

Although this incident could be considered a false-positive, the monitoring and alerts functioned as expected by detecting account activity outside of his users’ normal geographic area. It highlights the importance of monitoring international logins on all accounts, including student and inactive accounts. Cloud Monitor provided the visibility he needed to quickly identify and investigate this overseas login to maintain data security. 

Cloud Monitor’s Sign-In Locations Map

Why Account Takeover Prevention is Essential for Your District

A successful cloud account takeover can cause severe consequences for your school district. Once a criminal gains access to an internal account, they can manipulate their activities to appear legitimate, which allows them access to all data, files, and email addresses associated with that account. 

With this access, hackers can upload malware into your system, send phishing emails to other contacts to compromise additional accounts, grant OAuth access to malicious apps, and more. Such attacks are common and notoriously difficult to detect. 

How Cloud Monitor by ManagedMethods Can Help

Cloud Monitor by ManagedMethods provides seamless protection for your district’s Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 environments against account takeovers. Specifically built for the cloud, it offers advanced threat protection for phishing and malware, helping you easily identify warning signs of an account takeover attack, such as multiple successful logins, unusual foreign logins, and failed multi-factor authentication (MFA) attempts. 

Protect your school from account takeovers—try Cloud Monitor’s free audit today and gain instant insights into suspicious login activity!

The post How Cloud Monitor Helps Centennial School District Combat Account Takeovers appeared first on ManagedMethods Cybersecurity, Safety & Compliance for K-12.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from ManagedMethods Cybersecurity, Safety & Compliance for K-12 authored by Alexa Sander. Read the original post at: https://managedmethods.com/blog/k12-account-takeover-prevention/