Education
In late 2024, a prestigious independent school in the UK faced a cyber attack that exposed critical weaknesses despite significant investment in cybersecurity. The incident highlighted the hidden risks Boards can't afford to overlook.
The challenge
The school had built a strong internal cyber security programme: patching, penetration testing, phishing simulations, and tabletop exercises.
But attackers exploited a single overlooked gap — a remote access VPN exposed to the internet without multi-factor authentication (MFA).
Combined with stolen user credentials from the dark web, this enabled unauthorised access.
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Operational disruption was minimal, but the incident response and post-breach improvement costs were substantial, alongside reputational concerns for staff, parents, and governors.
Cyber Intelligence Report
Confident their defences had improved after remediation, the school invited Safespy to provide an external review.
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Using OSINT tools, breach data, dark web monitoring, and external footprint analysis, we identified high-risk vulnerabilities invisible to the school’s own monitoring systems, including:
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Exposed staff credentials on the dark web
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Misconfigured cloud services
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Insecure third-party integrations
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Legacy external services still internet-facing
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Our independent scoring gave governors a clear picture of residual cyber risk.
Lessons learned
This engagement reinforced three truths for Boards:
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External vulnerabilities may persist even with robust internal controls
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A hacker’s view is different from an IT team’s view
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Even “small” security events can create major financial and reputational consequences
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Our Cyber Intelligence Report provided the Board with assurance, visibility, and a roadmap to address weaknesses — turning a near-miss into a driver for resilience.
