Amid surge of virtual learning, security threats and hacks are lurking

(FOX 2) - For parents, students and teachers, navigating the new normal of virtual learning is a big challenge. And with everyone online the risk of falling victim to scams or hacks is real.

We talk with cyber risk expert from Burns & Wilcox David Derigiotis about what students, parents and teachers should keep in mind. 

"You have to understand where you are at risk, where we're sharing information. So much of our data has been compromised over and over again. So, your Social Security number, your email address, your password, your phone number; it's all out there. You have to assume it's public because it is. So it's important to know what to do on the backend to be able to prevent identity theft from occurring," he says. 

Are hackers after kids' accounts as well? 

"It's all about the data. So it doesn't matter their age is, necessarily, it's just how many email addresses, how many passwords, how many accounts can we take over? So in particular the students that are now online learning as the school week kicks off, it's important for students and children to not use their email address for any other service outside of school work. Don't use it for tick-tock, don't use it for YouTube or any other social media activity. Keep that email specific to online learning."

How easy is it for the bad guys if you use the same password on multiple accounts?

"It's a cakewalk. It's not a matter of an individual going through manually and trying to break into a specific account. They have lists and loads of compromised email addresses and passwords from all sorts of data breaches. What they'll put it into a software program and it will automatically check and scan across the entire internet looking for matches. If they find a school match with maybe a TickTock match or a YouTube match or Facebook, they have instant access. And hat's how they do it."

What else can people do?

"One of the most prudent things you can do is to place a security freeze, and this is more for adults and parents. Lock down your credit with the big national credit reporting bureaus; that will help reduce the opportunity for identity theft to occur. And I think for students and for teachers, all of these Zoom meetings and WebX going on it's so important for them to understand how this technology works. Lock it done beforehand so people can't "Zoom bomb" into the meeting. Set up the waiting room; block the meeting after the class has already started and that will help make sure the learning environment goes much smoother."