India, 22nd september 2025:For International Day to Protect Education from Attack, the conversation often focuses on physical risks to schools in conflict zones. But in 2025, the bigger battleground is digital. The modern classroom has shifted into a digital schoolyard built on platforms like Microsoft Teams, Google Classroom, and Zoom. While these tools drive collaboration and innovation, they are also prime targets for cyberattacks, especially those utilising AI. Without stronger “digital fences,” schools and universities are exposed to risks that directly threaten students, educators, and even national innovation.
Education: The World’s Most Attacked Sector
The education sector has become the number one target for cybercriminals worldwide. According to Check Point Research (CPR), the Indian Education and Research sector has been hit with an average of 8,487 cyberattacks per week over the past six months—almost double the global average of 4,368 attacks per organization. Across industries, Indian organizations face 3,278 attacks weekly on average, well above the global benchmark of 1,934. The exceptionally high attack volume in the education sector is driven by multiple factors: rapid digital transformation through hybrid learning models, connected campuses, and widespread use of personal devices, all of which have widened the attack surface. Coupled with limited cybersecurity budgets and the absence of dedicated teams, many institutions remain highly exposed, making them easy targets for cybercriminals.
The Education sector is an exploding sector for cyberattacks due to several specific reasons. Schools house vast amounts of sensitive data—from personal information of students and staff to financial and research data—making them attractive to attackers. In addition, with multiple parties needing to get connected to the particular educational institution for curriculum schedules, term holidays, online classes and move, the areas of intrusions simply increase. To exacerbate the situation, it is a known fact that many educational institutions lack the resources to secure their systems adequately; some simply do not have the know-how or skilled resources to ensure defense measures are also up to date. All these inevitably turn this sector into a “soft target” with a “hard” payoff.
Cyberattacks impacting More Than Just IT Downtime
The impact of cyberattacks on the education sector extends far beyond system outages. School closures and exam disruption caused by ransomware has forced universities offline for weeks, cancelling or delaying assessments. In 2023, ransomware attacks cost educational institutions much more than expected with median payments reaching 6.6 million dolar for lower education and 4.4 million dolar for higher education institutions according to a Sophos report.
Despite these payments, recovery remains a significant challenge, with only 30% of victims fully recovering within a week, down from last year, as limited resources and teams hinder recovery efforts. These ransom payments severely impact the school’s reputation, forcing schools to cut corners in other areas, impacting the quality of education to their student.
In recent times, Dark web sales of student data have been found, from transcripts and personal records to forged certificates causing personal harm to individuals and organisations.
In severe cases of cyberattacks, there have been reports of institutional collapse; the 157-year old Lincoln College in Illinois was forced to shut its doors permanently after a ransomware attack.
Every breach chips away at student trust, academic credibility, and institutional resilience.
The AI Factor: Cybercrime at Machine Speed
Artificial Intelligence is reshaping both the threat landscape and the defensive playbook for education. On the attacker side, AI enables deepfake phishing campaigns targeting students and staff, as well as automated credential theft through large-scale password spraying. Now with the power of AI, AI-driven malware now scans and exploits vulnerabilities in minutes, not weeks as in previous times. Attackers are also weaponising AI in school settings, creating highly convincing scams that make phishing far more effective than ever before integrating cybersecurity education early—especially before AI adoption begins is vital, cultivating the awareness needed to resist AI-generated threats in digital classrooms.
In July 2025 alone, CPR identified 18,000 new education-related domains, with one in every 57 flagged as malicious. Many of these were AI-generated, designed to mimic exam portals, fee-payment systems, or login pages.
On the defender side, AI can now help detect anomalies in login behaviour across thousands of accounts, identify zero-day malware before signatures exist and provide AI-powered prevention-first security, blocking phishing, ransomware, and malicious domains in real time.
Crucially, integrating cyber security education early—especially before AI adoption begins—is vital, cultivating the awareness needed to resist AI-generated threats in digital classrooms. For schools with small IT teams, AI-driven cyber security is no longer optional — it’s the only way to keep pace with attackers.
How Education Can Stay Safe in the AI-Era
To safeguard the digital classroom, education institutions must adopt a prevention-first strategy backed by AI-powered tools. Some key suggestions includes :
- Harden authentication by enforcing MFA and monitoring for MFA fatigue phishing tactics.
- Network segmentation to prevent attackers from moving laterally once inside.
- Reinforce phishing awareness for staff and students with examples of current scam
- Patch and update systems regularly, especially widely used platforms such as email and collaboration tools.
- Cyber awareness training for students, educators, and parents — helping them spot AI-generated scams, especially sophisticated phishing scams and recognising suspicious links
These aren’t just IT measures they are core safeguards for the future of learning.
Said Sundar Balasubramanian, Managing Director, Check Point Software Technologies, India & South Asia, “Education is the backbone of every country’s future, but without strong cybersecurity, it becomes an easy target for disruption. In India, we’ve seen a surge in AI-powered attacks that not only steal sensitive data but also interrupt learning for millions of students. India’s education and research sector is undergoing a major digital transformation—driven by hybrid learning, connected campuses, and data-intensive research. This shift has significantly widened the threat surface, creating new opportunities for cyber adversaries. Protecting the sector requires a prevention-first approach, enabled by AI-powered defenses, hybrid mesh security architecture, cloud-native security, endpoint protection, and actionable threat intelligence. Only then can we safeguard academic excellence, protect intellectual capital, and ensure that digital classrooms remain safe havens for growth and innovation.”
Protecting the Future of Education
During International Day to Protect Education from Attack, we recognise that cyber security is now fundamental to safeguarding education. The “digital schoolyard” is under constant attack, with AI making threats faster, smarter, and harder to detect. But with the right tools, collaboration, and prevention-first strategies, schools can protect not just their data, but the futures of millions of students.