Feedback sought for FCC’s proposed $200M school, library cyber program

Public comments for a proposed Federal Communications Commission cybersecurity pilot program that would offer up to $200 million to K-12 schools and libraries over three years have been opened and will be accepted until the end of the month, according to StateScoop. Aside from collecting information on cybersecurity and sophisticated firewall services necessary for school and library cyber defense, the "Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program" also seeks to identify the qualifications for program eligibility, as well as metrics for gauging the initiative's effectiveness, according to the FCC, which has noted the importance of government-provided cybersecurity resources in the pilot program. Such a development follows a report from the Government Accountability Office urging immediate federal assistance in defending schools against various cybersecurity threats, including phishing, distributed denial-of-service, and ransomware attacks after more than 600,000 K-12 students had their data compromised in ransomware intrusions in 2021.