Cyberattacks in education are a serious concern (e.g., breaches and system intrusions) that teachers need to respond to by cultivating cybersecurity awareness, engaging in continuous professional development, and modeling safe digital practices in their daily work, while technical prevention and mitigation are primarily the responsibility of institutional IT services and system-level governance. Strengthening cybersecurity depends on fostering awareness of how information is collected, analyzed, and used, thereby enabling users to take proactive steps to protect data, which are key components of teachers’ professional media literacy, particularly in managing personal and student information across social media, email, and cloud platforms. This quantitative study was conducted in Hong Kong with 120 early childhood, primary, secondary, and tertiary education teachers (88.3% female, age range = 18–54, Mage = 23.76) via an online survey. The study focused on social media, email, and cloud storage, and administered the Perceived Severity, Perceived Vulnerability, and Self-Efficacy Scales; the Data Protection Strategies Scale; and the Data Fabrication Strategies Scale, along with questions assessing awareness of data protection. Results revealed significant positive relationships among data protection awareness, psychological factors, and use of protection strategies. Awareness and protection strategies were also moderately linked to data fabrication behaviors. The findings indicate concerning gaps in teachers’ awareness of cyberattacks and their limited understanding of media literacy concepts, highlighting the need to integrate comprehensive media literacy training into teacher education programs and also provide intensive, mandatory on-site training for in-service early childhood, primary, secondary, and tertiary education teachers.

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and large language models (LLMs) offer new opportunities for teachers to create digital learning resources. However, limited research has examined how educators use prompting strategies to develop instructional tools in classroom contexts. This study employed an embedded single-case study design to investigate how fifteen in-service secondary mathematics teachers in Hong Kong developed Artificial Intelligence-Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (AI-TPACK) through participation in a professional learning network. The professional learning circle served as the primary case, with three embedded units of analysis examining the development of a Socratic tutor applet, a three-dimensional disc-method visualization tool, and an automated calculus worksheet generator. Findings indicate that teachers engaged in an iterative design process in which curriculum goals were translated into prompts and subsequently refined to produce digital learning resources. Collaborative problem-solving within the learning community helped teachers address practical challenges, including maintaining output quality across multiple interactions and ensuring the accurate presentation of mathematical notation and representations. The findings highlight the importance of AI-technological knowledge (AI-TK) in supporting teachers' effective use of AI tools and provide insights into how AI can be integrated into the design of teaching and learning resources in secondary mathematics and STEM education.