E-Rate and Cybersecurity

One of the sad realities facing American public school districts is that they are increasingly the target of cyberattacks and ransomware. With cash-strapped technology budgets, often limited information technology personnel, and a vast pool of young users with differing levels of technology awareness, schools often find themselves dealing with costly and damaging cyberattacks to clean up.

The E-Rate program has long been considered a potential source of support for school district cybersecurity. Recently, the Consortium of School Networking (CoSN) led a petition effort that called on the FCC to use E-Rate funds to support school cybersecurity enhancement. The proposal called for next-generation firewalls, endpoint security features, and more comprehensive full-stack cybersecurity solutions to be made a part of the E-Rate process. The proposal also received support from organizations such as the State E-Rate Coordinators’ Alliance.

With schools warehousing the critical and personally identifiable data of millions of minors, these upgrades to the program would provide a great source of support for schools looking to invest in security upgrades.