Flashpoint Brings Cyber and Physical Risk Management Solutions to K-12 School Systems

NEW YORK, NY – June 14, 2022 — Flashpoint, the globally trusted leader threat, vulnerability, and risk intelligence, announced today its comprehensive K-12 risk management and security solution, which provides school boards and education security practitioners with the intelligence and tools they need to rapidly detect, prevent, and mitigate a variety of cyber and physical threats. Threat actors are increasingly targeting schools with ransomware and DDoS attacks, causing school systems to fall victim to data breaches and email compromise schemes—all of which can wreak havoc on K-12 operations across the United States, as well as teachers, students, parents, and vendors.

From ransomware readiness and response to threat actor monitoring and brand exposure protection, Flashpoint is helping K-12 security professionals protect students, faculty, and parents from a wide variety of online and in-person risks.

“Schools increasingly are facing a confluence of cyber and physical threats that have to be addressed holistically. Flashpoint is the only joint threat intelligence solution that can quickly help schools better protect their students and personnel in both the cyber and physical realms, reducing risk everywhere,” said Steve Cooperman, Vice President of Global Public Sector Sales at Flashpoint. “Our K-12 risk management and security solutions are specifically designed to address the unique threats facing school boards nationwide, which cost taxpayers millions of dollars and far too often put the livelihoods of students, parents, and school personnel at risk.”

Flashpoint is partnering with leading school systems in the United States to deliver new K-12 solutions, including:

• Ransomware readiness and response. K-12 schools are commonly targeted by ransomware groups who disrupt network and communication systems and encrypt sensitive information—including the personal and financial data of students, their families, as well as school employees—in exchange for a ransom payment. 
• When cyber extortion occurs, Flashpoint helps K-12 schools quickly determine the extent of the attack, put into action a response plan, and mitigate the impact. As part of any organization’s overall risk landscape, plans and policies must be tested to ensure readiness in the event of an attack. We also work with schools to develop contingencies in the event of an attack, including establishing a process to ensure payments can be made securely and quickly.

• Brand exposure protection and domain monitoring. K-12 schools can leverage Flashpoint to identify fake or duplicate social media accounts that may be targeting its name and brand. Flashpoint helps eliminate threats like typosquatting, and enables the ability to take action via takedown services. The Flashpoint Intelligence Platform also provides insight into whether the brand is being impersonated through logo detection via Optical-Character Recognition (OCR) and machine learning technology.  

• Preventing account takeover (ATO). The Flashpoint Intelligence Platform helps school risk management and security teams identify school-affiliated email credentials that have been exposed, and whether or not they’re being sold within illicit communities across the deep and dark web (DDW). We enable schools to flag these accounts, reset passwords, and restrict permissions to prevent threat actors from accessing sensitive data, while mitigating the risk of ATO.

• Coordination with law enforcement. Flashpoint helps schools incorporate numerous standard operating procedures into its risk remediation program. Among them is knowing when and how to involve law enforcement quickly and effectively when scenarios demand that level of response.

• Threat actor monitoring and intelligence. Flashpoint helps schools quickly identify threat actor groups that are actively leveraging stolen data or involved in malicious activity against assets, personnel, or community. We help risk management and security teams understand the most important context surrounding threat actors, including affiliates, history, and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), which can lead to DDoS attacks, Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams, and other potentially detrimental schemes. Schools can set up custom alerts, prioritize remediation efforts, escalate issues in a timely fashion, and prepare for the future.

• Vulnerability intelligence and prioritization. Flashpoint provides education security professionals with comprehensive vulnerability intelligence, including more than 93,000 vulnerabilities (as of this publishing) that cannot be found in the CVE and NVD. With VulnDB, schools are alerted to newly disclosed vulnerabilities in their software ecosystem an average of two weeks faster than the public source. Combined with enriched metadata, security professionals can leverage VulnDB to identify, prioritize, and remediate the vulnerabilities that may pose the greatest risk to their data, assets, and infrastructure.

Flashpoint’s new cyber and physical security intelligence solutions for K-12 schools are available immediately. To learn more, contact [email protected].

More resources

• Learn more about how Flashpoint’s is helping to protect one of the largest public K-12 school systems in the United States: How Flashpoint Helps to Protect One of the Largest Public School Systems in the U.S.
• See how the Texas A&M University System (TAMUS) leverages Flashpoint intelligence to mitigate risk: 395,000 Compromised Credentials and Counting: How Texas A&M Leverages Flashpoint To Mitigate Risk

About Flashpoint

Trusted by governments, global commercial companies, and educational institutions, Flashpoint helps organizations protect their most critical assets, infrastructure, and stakeholders from security risks such as cyber threats, ransomware, fraud, physical threats, and more. Leading security practitioners—including cyber threat intelligence (CTI), vulnerability management, DevSecOps and vendor risk management teams—rely on the Flashpoint Intelligence Platform to proactively identify and mitigate risk and stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape. To learn more about Flashpoint, visit https://www.flashpoint.io or follow us on Twitter at @FlashpointIntel.