School Districts Protect Networks with New Appliances

Two school systems have gone public with their use of firewall appliances to implement content filtering software and wireless access points. Franklin County Schools in Alabama and Chester School District in New Jersey are both using appliances from the Seattle-based WatchGuard Technologies, which sells firewalls, access points and other security products.

The Alabama district has been using WatchGuard products since 2000. Franklin County's current firewall is an XTM 1525-RP, which has 25 Gbps firewall throughput and 10 Gbps virtual private network throughput. On top of that the school system has added a subscription to WatchGuard's security suite, which offers gateway antivirus, spam blocking, web blocking, intrusion prevention and application control. The district also has deployed AP200 wireless access points, supporting 802.11a/b/g/n in its seven locations. To serve residents in its rural area, the district also runs a couple of access points on the edge of its school grounds to provide "guest" Wi-Fi access.

"The school board can't afford to hire a huge staff, so it's essential to have a system and appliances that are easily manageable, and that's what WatchGuard does for us," noted Tim Burks, network administrator at Franklin County's district, in a prepared statement.

Chester School District has about 1,200 students and 400 staff members. After an evaluation of solutions from a handful of network providers, the school system chose WatchGuard's XTM 850, with 8 Gbps firewall and virtual private network throughput. That's armed with application control, web filtering, spam blocking, gateway antivirus and intrusion prevention. Shortly after deployment, the system helped IT staff catch students attempting to go onto disallowed websites. With the use of Active Directory authentication and WatchGuard reporting tools, IT was able to identify the responsible students and forwarded that information to the administration for follow-up.

"The ease of access to information and the intuitive platform provided by WatchGuard has freed up valuable time that, in the past, was spent monitoring and maintaining the previous device," said Dean Anderson, Chester's technology director, in a press release. "Now, more time can be spent where it matters — supporting the staff and students."

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • blue AI cloud connected to circuit lines, a server stack, and a shield with a padlock icon

    Report: AI Security Controls Lag Behind Adoption of AI Cloud Services

    According to a recent report from cybersecurity firm Wiz, nearly nine out of 10 organizations are already using AI services in the cloud — but fewer than one in seven have implemented AI-specific security controls.

  • stacks of glowing digital documents with circuit patterns and data streams

    Mistral AI Intros Advanced AI-Powered OCR

    French AI startup Mistral AI has announced Mistral OCR, an advanced optical character recognition (OCR) API designed to convert printed and scanned documents into digital files with "unprecedented accuracy."

  • robot waving

    Copilot Updates Aim to Personalize AI

    Microsoft has introduced a range of updates to its Copilot platform, marking a new phase in its effort to deliver what it calls a "true AI companion" that adapts to individual users' needs, preferences and routines.

  • teenager interacts with a chatbot on a computer screen

    Character.AI Rolls Out New Parental Insights Feature Amid Safety Concerns

    Chatbot platform Character.AI has introduced a new Parental Insights feature aimed at giving parents a window into their children's activity on the platform. The feature allows users under 18 to share a weekly report of their chatbot interactions directly with a parent's e-mail address.