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Schools Under Attack!
A recent study showed that in single year over 12 million networks were attacked, 27,000 + being specifically targeted at school networks.
Protecting schools ...
The widespread use of the Internet by schools has created several needs, threats and challenges that are (in varying degrees) common to the full spectrum of educational institutions, from primary and secondary schools (K-12) though higher and adult education. These include:
- Protection from viruses, worms and trojans
- Protection from intrusions
- Secure connectivity between remote locations and the network
- Protection from inappropriate content and compliance with regulatory norms
- Maximization of bandwidth and other network resources
- Protection of administrative resources and students from hackers
- TCO related issues such as ease of maintenance and updating, maximization of performance, and leveraging capital and expense budgets
Many IT Departments employ a multi-level defense strategy to address these challenges and threats. These layered defenses which typically include: intrusion prevention mechanisms, anti-virus software, anti-malware software, secured access, vulnerability assessments and patching, are not 100% secure. Intruders get past it all.
Financial profits have driven hackers to utilize state-of-the-art techniques and processes to bypass your defenses and to take control of your network and data. New attack techniques are being devised almost daily. Anti-virus / anti-malware software is effective only 50%-80% of the time. The failure of network defenses when undetected can result in many serious legal and regualtory consequeces for your organization.
Network monitoring gives you a window into your network to watch for intrusions, potential and real threats, network mis-configurations, and other unwanted network traffic. Constant vigilance is required maintain a secure and safe network. Network monitoring of traffic content is one of the tools that should be included in the overall layered defense of the network.
Why NetALERT Network Monitoring?
An intrusion can be defined as "any set of actions that attempt to compromise the integrity, confidentiality or availability of a resource''. As a school, not only is it necessary to defend against intruders from the outside but also from the inside, those curious and mischievous students initiating intrusion attacks internally. The Internet and your network are open for business 24x7, staffing for in-house 24x7 network monitoring and alerting is expensive. Collecting data, reviewing logs, analyzing and correlating data are time consuming tasks that require skilled staff. NetALERT Network Monitoring Service automatically gathers and analyzes information from various segments of the network to identify possible security breaches, which include both intrusions (attacks from outside the organization) and misuse (attacks from within the organization).
Many network administrators have seen a rise in viruses and unauthorized access. School servers have become repositories for unauthorized users to store bootlegged music files and other inappropriate material. Even with firewalls in place and desktop anti-virus software, intrusion attempts and worms have found their way into the network. There may even be a few unknown “guests” bouncing around your network now.
The exploits of a student or group of students, who have breached the security surrounding the network and data systems at their school and have changed marks or erased files, regularly appear in the news. Using any of the popular search engines, entering the phrase “hacking school grades” returns thousands of entries, including some “how to” items.
IT departments and service providers schools are limited in what they can do by budget constraints. Staff and skilled resources are scarce and expensive. IT dollars and resources are allocated by priority. Protection of the students, faculty, staff and information is high on the list. NetALERT is the cost effective solution to providing that additional level of security needed to make the network safe and conform to regulations.
Most schools do not hesitate to install a burglar alarm for protection and to detect intruders. However, few schools consider protecting their online student, personnel and financial information in a similar manner. The NetALERT Network Monitoring Service is essentially like a burglar alarm for the network. It looks for patterns of unusual behavior and when intrusive activity is detected NetALERT generates alerts to notify you that your network is possibly under attack. Often times NetAlert can detect virus/worm activity that can be diagnosed with recommended preventative measures defined before anti-virus clients are updated with new definitions. Without monitoring and analyzing the content of the network traffic there is no way to know what is really going on the network and what the network users are really doing.
I-TRAP Intrusion Detection and Attack Detection Services:
- 24x7 Network Operation Center
- Trained security analysts
- Monitors and analyzes network traffic
- Recognizes patterns typical of attacks
- Analysis of abnormal activity patterns
- Tracks and alerts user policy violations
- Alerts for suspicious activities
- Leveraging the IT budget dollars
- Frees staff time for other activities
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