#2 - Visibility into the Remote Classroom | Distance Learning's impact on Education IT

Securing school devices and protecting student privacy has never been more important — or more challenging.​ New research by Absolute examines the effects of distance learning on endpoint health, device usage, safety, and security as schools adapt to remote and hybrid learning models in the 2020/21 school year.

The State of Security in Education:
61% increase in heavily used devices
$3.7B additional costs related to COVID-19
141% increase in collaboration software
72% devices using an OS two+ versions behind

Visibility is down. Device drift is up.
At a time when maintaining a clear line of sight to devices and data is imperative, IT teams are flying blind. Missing devices are a major challenge for 41% of schools. 36% of endpoints have gone dark (as of Oct 2020). And audits loom, where visibility is necessary to prove the impact of IT investments on learning outcomes.
Yet, despite new risks and evolving requirements, IT team sizes are unchanged — stretched thin as they grapple with increasingly complex operating environments and the challenges of remote device management.

Complexity continues to rise.
The challenge of managing and securing multiple device types and operating systems — remotely — has made schools easy targets, with outdated OS versions and inconsistent patching resulting in ever-widening security gaps.
72% of devices are running operating systems two or more versions behind — rising to 81% for machines running Chrome OS. 454 patch versions were reported across Windows devices.

And the attack surface has expanded.
As IT teams prepare to support every learning environment — in-class, remote, or hybrid — new tools and applications further complicate their mission.
Use of online collaboration tools and remote desktop protocols has skyrocketed — increasing the risks of a ransomware attack. And securing remote access is an escalating challenge, with 46% of schools reporting at least one device using rogue or non-authorized VPN or web proxy applications.

Know the risks. Adapt your approach.
Compiled from data collected from millions of devices across 10,000 schools and districts, Distance Learning's Impact on Education IT shines a light on key trends and new areas of risk, and provides a strategic blueprint for IT teams tasked with supporting modern learning environments.

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COVID-19 kicked the Digital Learning Roadmap into overdrive in 2020 resulting in unprecedented challenges:

- Rapid rise of student devices
- IT staff size remained mostly unchanged
- Security gaps widened due to outdated software
- Devices often went dark for months
- Explore trends, strategies and insights for adapting endpoint security to modern learning environments — all in this year’s report.