New ISAC for K–12 Schools Names National Director

A new information sharing and analysis center (ISAC) set up to help American school districts protect themselves against cyber-threats has named its first national director.

Heading up the Kindergarten Through Twelfth Grade Security Information Exchange, or K12 SIX, is president of consulting firm EdTech Strategies and the K–12 Cybersecurity Resource Center, Douglas Levin.

Levin is the founder of the K–12 Cybersecurity Resource Center and creator of the K–12 Cyber Incident Map, a visualization of cybersecurity-related incidents reported about US K–12 public schools and districts from 2016 to the present.

“I’ve been tracking the growth in attacks in this sector since 2016,” said Levin. “We’ve seen a marked increase over time, and a real spike since COVID-19. I’m glad to be joining an action-oriented organization that is working to proactively protect schools.”

K12 SIX was softly launched in October 2020 by the Global Resilience Foundation (GRF), a nonprofit subsidiary of the National Council of ISACs. It’s the first intelligence-sharing hub to be specifically created to meet the needs of local school districts in preventing and mitigating cyber-attacks.

Staff at K12 SIX are tasked with reviewing security incidents reported to them by schools. Their role is also to enrich and share actionable alerts based on intelligence provided by private security vendors, other sharing communities, and government sources.

The role of regional director at K12 SIX has been filled by Eric Lankford, former cyber-engineer with the Birdville Independent School District near Fort Worth, Texas.

Together, Levin a ..

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