Security Flaws in Digital Education Products

How much do you know about cyber security? How much have you thought about cyber security in digital education product?

Cyber Security (Graphics from http://northrupcorporation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/iStock_000028716526_Medium.jpg)

As recently reported on NY Times a software engineer, also a parent was dismayed to discover that, an educational site that his son uses for school assessment, has serious security problems : the site is not unencrypted, even the passwords are stored in plain text. These security weakness could potentially allow hackers to gain access to student's names, voice recordings and other information to could expose students to hacking, identify theft, etc. As the market is at its dawn, there are many younger companies and startups whose focuses have been building the product, but not that much on the level of privacy and security protections. 

Mayer - a digital expert discovered a security weakness on Coursera, which could have allowed instructors to gain access to the names and email addresses of millions of students registered Coursera. 

I attempted to use different passwords to different sites that I log in. However there would have to be duplicates. These are shocking news to me. If there isn't much we can do, on the technical end, other than reporting any suspicions to the websites, what would you advise your students to do, to protect themselves on the internet? How would you identify a trustworthy educational program/website? 

Sources:

Singer, Natasha, Uncovering Security Flaws in Digital Education Products for Schoolchildren, NYTimes, 2015 Feb, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/09/technology/uncovering-security-flaws-in-digital-education-products-for-schoolchildren.html?_r=0