BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN

INEZ — The Martin County Board of Education received enlightenment from the district’s technology security expert, Roscoe Mullins, during a public meeting Monday.

Mullins began his report by saying the rapid migration to cloud services during the COVID-19 pandemic has made institutions more vulnerable to cyberattacks.

“Since the onset of COVID, we’ve had a lot more bad actors,” Mullins stated. He attributed part of this rise to the accelerated move to cloud-based systems during the pandemic. “COVID pushed a lot of stuff to the cloud quicker than it would have gotten there.”

According to Mullins, cloud platforms can be easier targets than in-house networks.

“If someone steals your password, they can do a lot of damage.”

Drawing attention to a real-world example, Mullins mentioned a neighboring county recently grappled with a severe data breach. He said the recovery was not only time-consuming but also financially draining.

“This sort of thing keeps me up at night because you try to watch everything, but there are doors and windows everywhere,” stated Mullins.

“The most important thing we can do is keep our kids safe and all the data safe because a 6-year-old’s Social Security number can be very valuable. Not only that, but we need to make sure they don’t go to bad places on the web.”

The school district is not without its defenses. Mullins pointed out that the state’s firewall acts as an added layer of security. The district also employs specialized tools to monitor electronic communications continuously for any red flags.

“We’re scanning the Google Drives, the OneDrives, and conversations they may have in teams,” remarked Mullins. “If anything looks threatening, it will flag it and send it to us.”

Mullins reassured the board that the district’s technology team takes a proactive approach to security.

In closing, he advised that immediate installations of software updates and patches are pivotal in defending against potential threats.