Consulting for Education: Security, Compliance, and Technology

FERPA obligations and security programs for institutions, plus the technology and AI governance decisions that determine how student and research data gets used and protected.
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Overview

How we help

Schools and universities hold student records, health information, and research data with an IT team that is already stretched. We build security programs that fit that reality: FERPA obligations mapped to the systems that actually hold student data, and controls someone has time to run.

We have also negotiated districts through ransomware and rebuilt what followed.
Industry
01
Education
Experience
02
15+ years on the market
Expertise
03
Industry specific mastery
Projects
04
200+ projects

Experience

We have supported K-12 districts and universities through audits, incidents, and the recoveries that follow.

Expertise

We apply FERPA, COPPA, and state student-privacy laws to the systems schools actually run.

The Team

Our team has sat with registrars, IT directors, and research offices, so the plan fits how schools operate.
Services

Our services for the education sector

Contact Us

Tell us what your institution is facing. We will bring a plan your team can run.

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Our Advantage

Why BD Emerson

01

FERPA mapped to your systems

FERPA turns on specifics: what counts as directory information, who qualifies as a school official, and when consent is required. We map those rules to the places student records actually live, the SIS, the LMS, and the export files in between, and write policies your staff can follow.

02

Built for lean IT teams

Most districts run security with a handful of people, and universities split it across departments. We scope the work accordingly: training that reaches teachers and registrars, incident plans that name who calls whom, and controls that hold up when under-13 students and COPPA enter the picture.

03

Research data and AI governance

Research universities carry a second set of obligations: grant agreements now arrive with security riders, and federal data use agreements have teeth. We build the controls those require. And as AI tutoring and proctoring tools reach classrooms, we help you decide what student data they may touch and under what review.

Certificates

Our accreditations

At BD Emerson, we believe that our team's extensive certifications not only set us apart but also ensure that we provide the highest level of service to our clients.
Case Studies

Featured success story

School District: Ransomware Response and a Backup Strategy That Holds
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Overview

Overview

A public school district with the student records, scheduling, and communication systems that day-to-day teaching depends on. Districts hold years of student and family data, and they hold it under FERPA obligations that do not pause during an outage. This district's systems, and the data inside them, became the target of a ransomware attack, and the district needed help fast.
Challenge

The Ransomware Challenge

The attack encrypted critical data and took district systems offline while the attackers demanded payment. Faculty, student, and staff records sat behind the encryption. Every day of disruption pushed district operations further off schedule, and the district had no playbook for negotiating with the people holding its data.
Solution

The Ransomware Solution

BD Emerson ran the ransomware negotiation alongside district officials and worked the technical response in parallel: containing the immediate threat and recovering the encrypted data. Remediation ran on the same clock: a plan to clear the district's systems end to end, so nothing of the ransomware remained when they came back online.
Security Challenge

The Backup Strategy Challenge

Recovery settled the crisis and raised the harder question: what happens next time. The district set out to rebuild its backup strategy around two requirements, backups that an attacker cannot alter or delete, and recovery fast enough to keep schools running after a future attack.
Security Solution

The Backup Strategy Solution

We designed the district's new backup architecture around immutable copies: once written, they cannot be altered or deleted, by an attacker or by anyone else. A future intrusion can encrypt live systems, but it cannot reach the last good copy. If an attack lands again, the district restores from a copy the attacker never touched, and classes continue while remediation runs.
Benefits

Benefits

  • Client Profile: A dedicated school district committed to the education and well-being of its students and teachers.
  • Client Requirements: Effective ransomware negotiations and remediation, and the implementation of a robust backup strategy.
  • Deliverables: Successful ransomware negotiation and system remediation, and a modern enterprise backup strategy with immutable backups.
  • Client Testimonial: "Facing a ransomware attack was one of our district's most challenging moments. BD Emerson's expertise was invaluable in navigating the crisis and fortifying our defenses for the future. We now have peace of mind knowing our data is secure and recoverable." - Superintendent at School District.