Education Cybersecurity Statistics
Top Topics in Education
Latest Statistics
80% (12 out of 15) of The Gentlemen’s attack claims were against higher education institutions.
Of 104 ransomware attacks on educational institutions in H1 2026, 36 were confirmed by the targeted entities.
There were 104 ransomware attacks in total against educational institutions in H1 2026.
97.4% of institutions have at least one Microsoft product.
28% of the top 100 vendors most commonly used by universities have experienced a data breach since 2024.
11% of the top 100 vendors most commonly used by universities currently show evidence of active infostealer malware infections.
Of the UK ransomware reports made (323) where the sector of the organisation was listed, the manufacturing industry (42 reports), scientific and technical sector (21 reports) and education sector (19 reports) have all been impacted.
63% of CISOs describe themselves as not very confident in the ability of local government and public higher education to secure public data, up from 35% in 2022.
18% of higher education institutions are fully aligned with Zero Trust principles.
67% of campus IT teams are currently understaffed.
52% of campus IT leaders cite cybersecurity and risk exposure as the top network challenge, surpassing network performance and reliability.
33% of all business email compromise in higher education is lateral.
Nearly one in eight phishing attacks that reach student inboxes originate from compromised internal accounts.
The education sector was the most targeted industry in March, experiencing an average of 4,632 cyber-attacks per organization per week, a 6% decrease year over year.
Education has 15% consumer trust
More than 50% of education desktops and mobile devices are unencrypted.
Education accounted for 24% of total DDoS attacks in 2025, up from 15% the prior year, with more than 45% of attacks occurring in April and May during peak academic periods.
In 2025, 52% of U.S. school districts experienced a cybersecurity incident, up from 36% in 2024 and 31% in 2023.
54% of U.S. school districts rate student identity theft or long-term harm as their number one concern.
58% of U.S. school districts have adopted new technologies to meet insurance requirements.
The education sector continued to be the most targeted industry in February, facing an average of 4,749 cyber attacks per organization per week, a 7% increase year over year.
Two-thirds of school IT leaders worldwide rated their cybersecurity maturity as moderate.
74% of schools lack a dedicated cybersecurity specialist in 2025
89% of schools experienced at least one cyber incident in the past year, primarily phishing, unauthorized access, and malware.
45% of SMBs cite employee negligence as their biggest cybersecurity concern, particularly acute in the education sector.
In October 2025, the education industry ranked third highest in proxy/filter-avoidance requests.
There was a 295% increase on November 8, 2025, in domains containing the term 'roblox'.
In school networks, traffic to proxy and filter avoidance categories increased by 83% on November 9, 2025, compared to the previous 12-month average.
37% of campus leaders say fraudulent enrollments are declining.
35% of campus leaders say fraudulent enrollments are rising.