Bay Area schools review cybersecurity measures after teen accused of hacking Miami-Dade system

TAMPA, Fla. - South Florida teachers and students ran into glitches and lockouts when their online networks came under attack in the first week of school, and the cyber attack has other school districts checking up on their own security.

On Thursday, Miami-Dade police said a 16-year-old boy is behind at least eight of the attacks that crippled the Miami-Dade school district.

“The distributed denial-of-service attack in Miami-Dade, that’s one of the earliest and most common forms of cyberattacks,” said Ron Sanders, the staff director for Cyber Florida.

Cyber Florida said school districts, small and large, are vulnerable to such attacks, so experts say it’s important to invest in good security.

“Most third-party vendors have software that can thwart them, and school systems ought to be checking that either they or their vendors are protected,” said Sanders.

That’s exactly what Pasco County schools did with its vendor.

“We sure did. We were very concerned after we saw that happened in Miami-Dade because Miami-Dade is a very large, sophisticated school district,” said Steve Hegarty, a spokesperson with Pasco County Schools.

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Hegarty said they also want teachers on alert when using online classrooms.

“We sent out a reminder probably yesterday to alert teachers after seeing what happened in Miami-Dade, just saying look there are some safeguards in place, be careful. You know what they are. Here’s a reminder, just be sure to use them,” Hegarty said.

A Hillsborough County Public Schools spokesperson said they use a managed firewall service with content filtering for protection. The district sent a statement saying in part: “We deploy a managed Fortinet nextgen firewall service with content filtering for the devices. Also when the device is taken home we currently have Lightspeed Relay filtering deployed for content filtering. We deploy Symantec EndPoint Protection on all Windows devices district-wide. Our software allows for application control as well as other controls.

We understand how important it is to provide our learners with the tools they need for a successful eLearning environment. Our district also recognizes how critical it is to keep students safe online, and we utilize several tools for heightened security on our devices.”

MORE: Florida's largest school district under siege by cyberattack, Miami-Dade superintendent says

Cybersecurity experts said they expect more attacks as we spend more time online, and school officials said they are shoring up their defenses.

“It’s the world that we live in right now. It’s going to be an issue going forward because anytime we or Miami-Dade or anybody else comes up with some sort of solution, there are really smart people out there who are just up to mischief,” said Hegarty. “It’s a cat and mouse game. So when you put something in place, they’re just trying to figure out how to get around it.”

Miami-Dade police are investigating how the teen was able to hack into the school district’s system, and investigators believe other attackers are involved.

Cyber Florida said they have argued that the state should put more funding toward cybersecurity for all schools.