Assessment of Ransomware Attack Preparedness in Secondary Schools in Plateau State

Secondary schools increasingly maintain digital student records, examination results, and administrative data, making them potential ransomware targets, and evaluating their preparedness for such attacks in Plateau State provides evidence for improving institutional cyber resilience. This study assessed ransomware attack preparedness in public and private secondary schools in Jos North and Barkin Ladi Local Government Areas, Plateau State, North Central Nigeria. A descriptive survey was conducted among 20 school ICT administrators and 80 teachers from 20 secondary schools, supplemented by an infrastructure checklist assessment. Preparedness dimensions assessed included data backup frequency, antivirus software deployment, staff security training, incident response awareness, and network access controls. Results showed that only 25.0 percent of schools conducted regular data backups. Antivirus software was installed and updated in 45.0 percent of schools. No school had a documented incident response plan. Security training for staff had been provided in only 15.0 percent of schools. Most schools (70.0 percent) had unsecured local area networks accessible to students. Teachers could not define ransomware in 65.0 percent of cases. The study concludes that secondary school ransomware preparedness in Plateau State is critically inadequate across all assessed dimensions. Recommendations include state government-funded IT security packages for schools, mandatory school cybersecurity induction for ICT staff, cloud backup subsidies, and a North Central school cyber resilience programme coordinated by the Plateau State Ministry of Education.

Keywords: ransomware preparedness, secondary schools, Plateau State, school cybersecurity, data backup