Cyber Academy course

Backups you can actually restore

A 18-minute Cyber Academy course for technology team. Design district backups that survive ransomware, prove them with a regular restore test, and keep a one-page record that shows leaders, auditors and insurers exactly how fast you can bring the school day back. 7 sections, 8-question knowledge check, a branching practice scenario and a completion certificate. The companion guide gives managers the outline, a huddle plan and the answer key.

Time to use: 18-minute course
Audience: Technology teams
Language: English
Formats: PDF

Take the course (sign in)Try the free 2-minute lesson

First page preview of Backups you can actually restore

What's inside

Section: The Saturday the file server did not come back
Section: A backup design that survives ransomware: 3-2-1-1-0
Section: What a district actually needs to back up
Section: Recovery targets in school-day terms
Section: The restore-test runbook
Section: The one-page evidence record
Section: When a test fails, and when attackers reach the backups
8-question knowledge check with explanations
Branching scenario: The newest backup set will not mount
Completion certificate (named accounts)
Printable companion guide with facilitator notes and answer key

Learners will be able to

Apply the 3-2-1 rule with an offline or immutable copy and backup credentials kept apart from everyday identity
List the district systems, exports and configurations that must be in scope, including cloud services
Set recovery time and recovery point targets in school-day terms and measure real restores against them
Run a quarterly file-level and annual full-system restore test from a numbered runbook
Keep a one-page restore evidence record and act on a failed test without hiding it

How to use and print

The course runs in Cyber Academy; this companion guide prints double-sided on Letter for managers and facilitators.

Participating districts download the same files co-branded with their own name and logo, and the QR codes count scans for their campaign reports.

Supports these rubric areas

Incident Recovery Plan Execution
Technology Infrastructure Resilience
Data Security
NIST CSF RC.RP
NIST CSF PR.IR
NIST CSF PR.DS

Part of

Start here: technology teams

Cyber Academy course · Technology teams

Admin account hygiene

Shrink the number of accounts that can take down the district: separate daily and admin accounts, keep break-glass, service and vendor accounts under control, and run a quarterly privileged access review you can show as evidence.

18-minute course
English
Online course (sign in)

Cyber Academy course · Technology teams

MFA rollout playbook for schools

Roll out multifactor authentication in a sensible order, with the right method for each group, a campus-by-campus communication plan and help-desk scripts that stop attackers from talking their way past it.

19-minute course
English
Online course (sign in)

Backups you can actually restore