Topic Categories

Educational Software

Background

The educational software that we are focusing on is Learning Management Systems (LMS), such as Canvas and Blackboard. These types of learning software are generally run in a browser or as a mobile application, and help professors and students manage grades, assignments, and even learning resources, making them a vital part of the modern educational system. LMS programs have been used since the early 2000s and the beginning of the global pandemic has only widened their usage through mandated online classes. Programs like these are in use all over the world in homes everywhere, making their security a top priority.

History

Ever since the advent of the Internet, there was a need for a type of program that could handle educational functions virtually, and provide professors and students alike with space online to work in. The first iterations of LMS however did not occur until much later, as stated in an Ohio State document on the subject “Learning management systems were first introduced in the late 1990s, and their adoption has been accelerated by the development of multimedia and the expansion of the Internet”(Sulun). When the worldwide web appeared the internet became much more accessible, and made it possible for more of these systems to appear. One of the first modern LMS programs in place came from MIT, which “begins offering lectures and course material online through its OpenCourseWare project in 2002”(Tom). This later led to an increase of LMS programs to arise after MIT led the effort to put educational resources into an online medium, and provide them free of charge to the students and faculty. By 2012 Canvas, the most used LMS program in the US was released for use to educators and the public, and quickly began to change the way schools were teaching students. The launch of Canvas and other similar LMS programs resulted in the revolution of the Educational System with a shift away from the traditional pencil and paper methods, for keyboards and online submission forms.

Virtual Meeting Related Breaches

Background

Alongside LMS programs, VIrtual Meeting software like Zoom and Google Meet has become ingrained in the online educational system, as cornerstones of online learning. These programs however are all too often also victims of breaches and other security issues. The most recognizable of these breaches would be with the online video conferencing program Zoom, and the infamous “zoombombing” that would occur when unauthorized users gained access to the meeting rooms used by educators to join and cause havoc. Up until recently these Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and video conferencing programs had been widely used only for business, gaming, and family meetings from afar, but that changed recently with the occurrence of Covid-19 and the need for some form of real-time online meeting place online for educators and students.

History

The roots of VOIP can trace back all the way to the 1920s, but the programs that are around and used currently have much more recent origins. The beginning of Zoom, one of the widest used, but also most critically flawed Virtual Meeting programs occurred after the resignation of the VP for Cisco’s Engineering branch, Eric Yuan. From an article on Zoom’s rise to popularity: “In 2011, Cisco’s then-VP of engineering, Eric Yuan, tried to persuade his fellow executives that they urgently needed to improve WebEx, Cisco’s web-conferencing product...Cisco didn’t listen,”(Shah). After Yuan’s ideas were rejected, he submitted his letter of resignation and began his own venture which he named Zoom. Despite being the former VP of Cisco’s Engineering branch, Zoom had some massive oversites when launched, mainly the encryption that the software used, which was not on par with the industry standard. The easy to crack algorithm made it a viable target for malicious actors looking to steal information. Zooms security as a whole left it to be easily exploitable. The term “Zoombombing” originated early on during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, with students leaking meeting information to outside sources, allowing unauthorized users to easily enter the meeting with the aim of disrupting it. Once a user is in the meeting they also have more access to the other user's data, which paired with Zooms poor encryption is a dangerous combination. What had originally begun as a prank quickly started to branch out into becoming organized and targeted attacks with the goal of disruption. From one journal article on the subject “An investigation carried out by the New York Times in April has revealed that a considerable number of social media accounts, including Instagram accounts, Twitter accounts, message boards on Reddit and 4Chan, are used by thousands of people to carry out Zoom disruption campaigns,”(Secara). The adverse effects of this type of attack include the damage of mental and academic health, as well as the possibility of further more target attacks on members of the meeting whose information is accessed maliciously. With many educational systems using zoom as a place for holding class virtually, updates were needed to quickly address these issues. Updates arrived and helped to secure the meeting rooms better, but the problem of target zoom disruption attacks still remains a constant threat.

References

Correia, A.-P. (n.d.). The Evolution and Diffusion of Learning Management Systems: The Case of Canvas LMS. In Driving Educational Change: Innovations in Action. Retrieved December 4, 2020, from https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/drivechange/chapter/the-evolution-and-diffusion-of-learning-management-systems-the-case-of-canvas-lms/

Secara, I.-A. (2020). Zoombombing – the end-to-end fallacy. Network Security, 2020(8), 13–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1353-4858(20)30094-5

Shah, H. (2019, December 2). How Zoom Became the Best Web-Conferencing Product in the World in Less Than 10 Years. FYI. https://usefyi.com/zoom-history/

The history of online education. (2017, November 29). Peterson’s. https://www.petersons.com/blog/the-history-of-online-education/