How AI startups are leading the battle against sophisticated phishing attacks
Earlier in 2025, a report from the non-profit Center for Internet Security shone a light on the rise of cyberattacks against schools. According to the 18-month study, 82% percent of K-12 organizations said they had experienced cyber incidents over the past 1.5 years.
Additionally, the data suggested these are far from random, as attacks regularly occurred during the beginning of the school year or exam periods.
These figures combine to show the challenging reality facing schools. It’s clear that new startups solutions are needed to help these institutions stay ahead of these threats and avoid data breaches.
Now, reports are starting to also emerge that cybercriminals with access to stolen student and teacher information are attempting to extort a number of schools.
Although the attacks are coming from many angles, malicious emails represent a significant vulnerability that demands new solutions from startups.
AI-powered startups looking to address this issue
While school officials are taught to watch out for malicious emails, it’s now getting harder to detect these as cybercriminals employ sophisticated socially engineered emails that can fool both IT professionals and screening tools.
To get ahead of this major vulnerability, ManagedMethods, a startup addressing student safety and compliance for K-12 school districts, has launched an Advanced Phishing solution.
According to the company’s CEO Charlie Sander, “Bad actors use sophisticated, socially engineered emails to impersonate trusted sources like administrators, vendors, and even students and parents in order to steal credentials, deploy ransomware, or trick staff into wiring funds.”
Advancing Phishing represents the first time chain-of-thought (CoT) AI comes to K–12 schools to provide an advanced detection tool with unparalleled capabilities.
With the average recovery cost for education data breaches skyrocketing to $3 million in 2024, the solution offers a way to stop malicious attempts in their tracks and avoid these huge losses.
AI startups setting the bar for robust cybersecurity defenses
According to Sander, the company saw the need to introduce enterprise-grade security to help schools against the threats posed by sophisticated phishing techniques.
Advanced Phishing includes an AI model that learns from real-world attacks targeting schools to improve detection accuracy and reduce false positives. It also leverages CoT AI to better understand the intent behind the senders’ email to flag risky emails, and also automatically provide IT teams with recommended response actions.
The new feature expands the existing protections offered by its product Cloud Monitor with no additional platforms to manage, and is fully compatible with Gmail and Outlook.
The introduction follows the launch of ManagedMethods’ Classroom Manager, a comprehensive solution for online instruction and learning in the classroom that puts control back into the hands of teachers.