Security

CDW•G and Clarity Innovations Launch K–12 Blueprint Security Toolkit

The new resource hub aims to support IT leaders in their cybersecurity planning.

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Micah Castelo is a web editor for EdTech: Focus on K-12. Her experience includes education and community news coverage for the Syracuse Post-Standard and international news reporting for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

CDW•G and Clarity Innovations introduced a new cybersecurity resource hub at CoSN2020, the Consortium for School Networking’s annual conference, in May.

Called K–12 Blueprint Security, the toolkit was designed to help IT leaders get buy-in for stronger cybersecurity programs. It features a plethora of materials — from a security self-assessment checklist to an overview of data privacy and security regulations IT decision-makers and district leaders should be familiar with.

Wendy Jones, CDW•G K–12 education strategist who helped put the toolkit together, writes in a blog post that IT leaders need all the support they can get when it comes to cybersecurity. Cybercriminals continue to target K–12 school districts, but the education sector ranks last out of 17 other industries in terms of overall cybersecurity posture, according to a 2018 SecurityScorecard report.

Jones also says CDW•G and Clarity Innovations wanted to ensure the toolkit focused on the human side of security too.

“We relied on two key models — CoSN’s Trusted Learning Environment and the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Cybersecurity Framework — and paired them together to create a resource bank that encourages an organizational shift toward better cybersecurity practices,” she writes.

Learn more about the K–12 Blueprint Security toolkit here.