Between January and July 2026, educational organizations such as colleges and universities, research institutes, and K-12 school systems alike, faced an average of 4,696 weekly cyberattacks per organization, representing an 8% increase compared to the same period in 2025 and more than double the global cross-industry average of 2,150 attacks. Education also ranked highest among all 23 tracked industries, experiencing attack volumes approximately 70% higher than the government sector, the second-most targeted industry.
…
To understand how threat actors prepare for the academic year, Check Point Research monitored newly registered domains containing education-related terms such as “school,” “university,” “college,” and “student.” In July 2026, researchers identified 18,954 newly registered education-themed domains, an increase of 5% from June and 3% year-over-year.
More concerning is the growing level of malicious activity among those registrations, as flagged by Check Point ThreatCloud. In June 2026, one in every 305 newly registered education-related domains was malicious. By July, that ratio had increased to one in every 226 domains.