Third of schools suffered from cyber attack last year

A poll of teachers across England by Teacher Trapp for Ofqual found that 34% of schools and colleges in England experienced a cyber incident during the last academic year.

What's more, one in three secondary teachers did not have cyber security training in the last academic year.

Ofqual’s Executive Director of General Qualifications Amanda Swann said: "Losing coursework that is the result of many hours of hard work is every student’s nightmare. Even more distressing is losing a whole class or year group’s coursework because of weak cyber security on a school or college IT system.

"Many schools and colleges take cyber security seriously, but this poll highlights that there is more to be done. I would encourage schools and colleges to visit the National Cyber Security Centre’s school resource guide to learn how to defend against cyber attacks."

The poll found that twenty-three per cent of schools and colleges in England experienced a cyber security incident due to a phishing attack.

The north-west was hit hardest, with 40% of schools which responded having had a cyber incident, compared with 28% in the east of England.

Twenty per cent that suffered a cyber attack could not recover immediately, with four per cent taking more than half a term to recover.

Nine per cent of headteachers said the attack was critically damaging.

One in three teachers have not had cyber security training this year — of the two-thirds who have had training, 66% said it was useful.