FERPA Compliance Guide (Updated 2024) | UpGuard

**Executive Summary:** This article explains FERPA’s protections for student education records and provides practical cybersecurity guidance for educational institutions to remain compliant. It summarizes who and what FERPA covers, common violations and penalties, and recommends controls and practices—including adopting cybersecurity frameworks, installing firewalls and anti-malware, conducting risk assessments, encrypting data, enforcing access controls, monitoring/logging network activity, and providing annual FERPA updates and training—to reduce the risk of data breaches and regulatory consequences.