K-12 and higher education institutions are becoming increasingly reliant on cloud-based learning management systems (LMS). The LMS market in the U.S. is projected to grow at a 13.4 percent compound annual growth rate, from $5 billion in 2021 to nearly $17 billion by 2031, according to Allied Market Research. Why? Cloud-based LMS enable flexible, remote and personalized learning experiences students increasingly expect.
While cloud LMS platforms offer your school and students significant benefits, they must be properly secured to minimize risk of exposing your institution to data privacy and operational risks.
The Power & Promise of Cloud-based LMS
Cloud-based LMS platforms like Canvas, Moodle and Google Classroom have become mainstays in modern education, streamlining how your school delivers and manages teaching while improving how your students experience it. Key advantages for your institution include:
- Remote & Hybrid Learning—Your students and educators can access resources whenever and wherever they need, on any device connected to the internet.
- Real-time Collaboration—Your learners and instructors can collaborate in real time, enhancing engagement and improving the experience.
- Centralized Management—Your teachers can manage lessons, review student work and give personalized feedback from one easy-to-use platform.
- Easy Scalability—Your cloud LMS easily scales to accommodate new users, locations and toolsets.
- Advanced Analytics—Built-in analytics enable you to collect and collate student data, offering valuable performance metrics and data-driven insights.
- Integration With Digital Tools—Your cloud LMS platform connects seamlessly with advanced tools and information systems, creating a cohesive digital learning ecosystem.
- Easy Updates—Your Cloud LMS stays current with automatic updates, bug fixes and feature enhancements that are managed entirely by your service provider.
Security Challenges in the LMS Ecosystem
In 2023, the education and research sectors were the most targeted industries globally, facing an average of 2,046 cyberattacks per week, according to Statista. Common threats include data interception, unauthorized access, insider threats and accidental exposure—all of which you mut consider carefully and plan for proactively.
Your cloud LMS is likely to be integrated within your school’s broader digital ecosystem, it can become a critical vulnerability if not properly secured. A single breach can compromise student records, academic data, financial systems, administrative operations and Internet of Things (IoT) smart devices. Consequences can include disrupted learning, data loss, identity theft, recovery costs, legal liability and damaged trust with your community.
In response, your education institution needs purpose-built solutions that enable:
- Data Security—Consider end-to-end encryption to secure data transfer, data loss prevention (DLP) to protect data integrity and cloud access security broker (CASB) to enforce consistent security policies across cloud applications.
- Network Security—Protect your network access points with tools like secure web gateway (SWG) to defend against web-based threats, virtual private network (VPN) to encrypt internet traffic and next-generation firewall (NGFW) for advanced packet filtering.
- Threat Detection & Response—Leverage intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS) for real-time monitoring and threat mitigation, security information and event management (SIEM) to analyze activity against historical data and managed detection and response (MDR) for cloud-delivered, expert support.
- Access Control—Ensure the right people access the right data with multifactor authentication (MFA) to protect against compromised credentials, role-based access control (RBAC) to segment data access by role and identity and access management (IAM) to centralize identity governance.
- Business Continuity—Enable business continuity with disaster recovery and automated backup tools designed to restore regular business operations in the event of disaster or significant disruption.
- Managed Support—Partner with a managed services provider (MSP) to get expert support, powerful infrastructure and assistance with audits, updates and user training.
Build a Safer Digital Learning Environment
Cloud-based LMS platforms are powering the future of education, enabling you to deliver more dynamic, accessible and personalized learning experiences. But without the right security measures, these systems can expose your school to serious risks. Protecting your digital learning environment takes more than just good intentions; it takes the right partner.
Cox Business takes the complexity of cloud security off your plate. With fully managed cybersecurity solutions, Cox can help you safeguard student data, strengthen your digital infrastructure and ease the pressure on your internal IT team. We handle the heavy lifting, so you can stay focused on delivering exceptional learning experiences.
