COLORADO SPRINGS — October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. This month, Academy School District 20 (D20) is helping students keep personal data secure.
With more than 26,000 devices like laptops across the district, cyber incidents can happen easily.
Compromised passwords or unauthorized software downloads could cause the network to shut down.
That means no one has internet access.
"[Compromises and downloads happen] averaging anywhere from 5 to 10 per day," said D20's Chief Information Officer, Shelley Kooser.
Every week this month, students have been learning the importance of having a strong password and how to not fall for phishing scams.
"The goal is to make sure we can continue learning, we don't want to shut down the network," said Kooser.
Kooser said there have been fewer password compromises and unauthorized downloads since the beginning of the month.
Two Pine Creek High School seniors use their laptops at school and back home every day.
"I always do background research on files I download just to be on the safe side," said Joseph Deno.
"Everyone used email, everyone has passwords, everyone has an online bank account, so this is important stuff you want to protect because you don't want people getting this information," said Smith Barrionuevo.
D20 had an outage over the summer and another at the end of last school year.
Kooser said the IT team upped digital protections.
"If they do download something, obviously it's against the policy, however, we've taken measures where we will quarantine that and it won't make it to their device," said Kooser.
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The United States Air Force Academy graduation commencement speaker announced
The Secretary of the Air Force will be this year's speaker at next week's Air Force Academy graduation.
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