Cybersecurity testing puts Aspen View ahead of peers
Cybersecurity testing puts Aspen View ahead of peers
Publish Date: 2026-07-11 19:00:00
Source Domain: www.townandcountrytoday.com
Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. Director Ernest Aleixandre warns trustees that security breaches are no longer a hypothetical scenario
ATHABASCA – Aspen View Public Schools is strengthening its cybersecurity measures as the division works to stay ahead of increasingly sophisticated online threats.
Trustees got an up-to-date breakdown on what the divisions’ IT department, led by Ernest Aleixandre, has been working on at the Thursday, June 18 board meeting.
“It’s a continuous improvement effort; we’ve done a lot of work, but the bad actors are always upping their game, so we have to continue to up ours as well,” said Aleixandre.
The department has a variety of ongoing work in the field, including cyber awareness training, continued optimization of existing protection systems, and simulated phishing attacks – a type of social engineering in which attackers try to simulate a trusted entity, such as an employer, in an effort to steal information.
“That’s one of the biggest ways that these bad actors will get in,” said Aleixandre.
This year, Aspen View conducted its first contracted penetration test, both internally and externally, in which a company scans the outside network to identify potential vulnerabilities, then scans internal systems to spot weak spots.
Aleixandre said the practice is becoming increasingly popular among school divisions, and Aspen View performed well compared to its peers.
“It’s a fairly lengthy report, and we obviously have things to work on, just like anything, but we got some fairly high praise from the consulting company,” he said.
‘Of the school divisions they’ve worked with over the years, Aspen View was far and away the leader of the pack when it came to securing the network.”
Additionally, Aspen View works with an outside agency that rates internal and external security factors, including the likelihood of ransomware or data breach incidents, and compares them with the industry average.
On a 300-820 point scale, Aspen View increased to an 800, up from the previous mark of 780.
“Like anything, cybersecurity continues to escalate. The pervasive attitude amongst everybody that looks after cybersecurity is that, assume at some point that you’re going to get breached,” he said.
“It’s not a matter of if anymore; at some point, you’re going to get breached. It will happen, so the best thing we can do is make sure that we prepare the best that we can, so when something does happen, we mitigate it and minimize the damage.”
