ParentPay Group leads edtech suppliers with grade A cyber security rating

Download our edtech cyber security whitepaper to learn more about the threat faced by the UK education sector and the impact that education suppliers can have on a school’s cyber security efforts. 

How confident are you that your school’s cyber security will protect you against an attack? 

Government statistics reveal that education institutions have experienced a 70% increase in cyber security breaches or attacks in the last 12 months alone. 

In fact, schools and MATs are becoming increasingly attractive targets for cybercrime according to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) because they are often vulnerable, and the sensitive financial and personal data they hold is extremely valuable to attackers. 

When an attack does happen, not only can the perpetrators lock you out of your systems so your school can’t function, they can also demand exorbitant ransoms for the return of your data, or publish your data on the dark web. 

A partner against cybercrime

Fortunately, there are ways you can protect your school’s data. However, an effective and resilient cyber security approach calls for a level of technical expertise, and many schools don’t have the people, resources or experience to keep their systems safe at a time of spiralling cybercrime. 

Here at ParentPay Group, we take cyber security very seriously, and we understand the protection a school or MAT will need. You are custodians of sensitive, confidential data and you can’t risk losing it or letting it fall into the wrong hands.  

Although you may know us best for SIMS and ParentPay as leading MIS and cashless payment solutions, we have also been ranked as A-rated across the edtech industry for cyber security hygiene by independent security specialists Black Kite. 

So, what makes ParentPay Group the safest pair of hands? 

1. A long-term commitment to security

One reason we have such a breadth of experience is that we’ve been focusing on cyber security for a long time – more than a decade. That’s way before cyber security was such a prominent topic, and adoption of industry standards was not so commonplace.   

With cybercrime evolving all too rapidly, we have to stay at least one step ahead. Our long security pedigree enables us to identify, analyse and predict threats facing our customers and the education sector as a whole.  

This means we can not only respond to threats, we can also anticipate them and help to prevent them putting your school at risk.  

2. Investment in specialist cyber security teams 

With schools and MATs becoming key targets for attacks, you need the support of a supplier which understands your challenges and priorities and takes real responsibility for your data. So, we created a dedicated security team who are specialists in the field and dedicate multi-million pounds worth of investment to monitoring and maintaining our security protections each year. 

Cyber security isn’t a nine-to-five occupation, so our team of 12 monitors our customers’ systems 24 hours a day, seven days a week with the very best technologies available. 

3. A digital fortress for your school data

There’s no cutting corners with cyber security, so we have invested in an extensive suite of advanced security controls which can monitor, detect and block malicious attempts to gain access to your data. 

Cyber attackers find their way into systems in multiple ways, through remote desktops, VPN connections and even outdated software on someone’s laptop. Out-of-the box antivirus solutions simply don’t provide enough protection.   

Our extensive cyber security suite ensures we can identify, prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from, a wide range of cyber threats. 

Should a school or MAT themselves suffer a breach, our cloud platform stores immutable backups which are copies of your data that cannot be altered, deleted, or changed in any way and are kept in secure cloud storage. 

4. A cloud-based service provider

Schools and MATs are increasingly moving to the cloud to host their IT systems and avoid the complexity of managing an on-premise solution. After all, installing and maintaining your own servers and software components is complicated and expensive.  

Cloud solutions such as SIMS Next Gen and ParentPay remove the risks associated with on-premise solutions, and with a responsible supplier that is experienced in information security, we provide extra protection against cybercrime. 

As cyber security evolves so rapidly, ParentPay Group’s cloud-based services take on the management of updating solutions, increasing capacity and ensuring you have access to the latest tools and technology to keep your data safe.  

We refresh and update these systems for our customers as part of the service – it’s not an optional extra. 

By adopting our cloud-based solutions, schools can leave their technology in the hands of experts who maintain, monitor and secure the infrastructure and services you rely on daily.  

With an expert partner and best-in-class digital protection, schools and MATs have the space they need to be experts in their field of teaching and learning.  

To find out more about our leading cyber security services for schools and MATs, download the SIMS and ParentPay cyber security whitepaper here.