Education Websites Face Pending ‘Mark of Shame’

Cross-posted at the K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center: https://k12cybersecure.com.

Chrome is the most popular** browser, and later this month it will be making a change in the way it communicates the safety of websites to users. This is not unexpected: Google has been signaling its intent to do so for years. The change:

I’ve previously documented that state department of education and school district websites appear to be lagging other sectors in offering HTTPS (and other important secure browsing features) to their users. Well, in a few short days, as parents, students, teachers, and members of the media go to visit these same websites, their browser bars are likely to begin reporting that school websites are not secure.

That notice will generate important questions about the digital security practices in education – and rightfully so.