Emergency and education: a situation that generates weaknesses

The emergency to counter and beat the now infamous Covid-19 requires sacrifices for everyone and has momentarily changed the habits and lifestyles of all Italians. The worlds of work and education have been considerably impacted by this situation: in order to avoid personnel contacts, companies and public agencies have been forced to hastily (and with numerous problems) activate telework stations. We wrote about the risks and solutions in the work environment in the recent article “Covid-19 and smart working“, but this situation has also extended to students of all grades. In order not to lose precious days of lectures, universities and schools have adopted so-called teledidactics, and unfortunately, except for a few exceptions, our Italy has proved ill-prepared to face this test.

The emergency within the emergency

In many cases, thanks to the work and goodwill of principals and professors, emergency solutions have been adopted that, whether due to lack of funds or lack of experience, do not work properly. We do not feel like criticizing those who have engaged in these practices, but it is obvious that in many cases the solutions have been prepared as best as possible. To quote a classic saying “desperate times call for desperate measures”… but unfortunately when technology is involved the old proverbs do not work and the risk is to cause more problems than benefits, particularly when it comes to safety. The scenario has different aspects: students who have Internet at home, students who cannot access the net, and those who can only use 3G or 4G connections (which in most cases have little data traffic available). Then there are those who connect with a Windows PC, those with a Mac, and those with a tablet or just a smartphone. Ultimately, in this prevailing chaos, in a country where the“digital divide” is unfortunately still a sad reality, running video-conferencing classes or relying on makeshift servers to exchange documents and study materials can be risky, particularly when the infrastructure has been set up by people with little expertise in security. The danger of data theft is real, and considering that there are minors among the students, the situation can become even more serious. Let us always keep in mind that malicious hackers did not stop at Covid-19; on the contrary, they often took advantage of the emergency to launch merciless cyber attacks.

The underlying weakness

Distance learning “solutions” created without considering basic functionality and security, in most cases rely on makeshift solutions that could suffer malware attacks over time, generating even more chaos. Emergence in the days of the coronavirus has created advantages and disadvantages: you don’t arrive late for class, you can wake up a little later, there is no transportation to take, and with breakfast on hand, you just need to turn on your computer to attend class. But beware, a server with weak protections, the use of insecure passwords, carelessly managed file managers, can lead to problems ranging from personal data breaches, to infection by computer viruses. Not to mention that the infrastructure created by inexperienced people may not be able to withstand the simultaneous connection of a variety of students using a variety of computing devices. In this sense, the departments of some universities have shown themselves prepared to manage virtual classrooms for video courses, but in schools the situation is definitely more critical, particularly in those regions already brought to their knees by the emergency. The advice from Hypergrid, which has been at the forefront of the cybersecurity industry for years, is to avoid half-baked solutions and turn to teams of experts. There are numerous certified companies working in the field that can lend a hand, even for simple advice. Consider that the current crisis can turn into opportunities for the future in both smart working and distance learning, the important thing is to follow a path that, even taking small steps, ensures a focus on security in preventing data breaches and theft.