The Cyber-Secure Schools program aims to reduce malware risk, improve network performance and create safe online learning environments for teachers, students and administrators, as well as every device connected to the school network, through CIRA's D-Zone DNS firewall powered by Nominum N2 Secure Business.
Nominum and CIRA are already seeing rapid adoption of D-Zone by school boards across Canada, given the significant costs associated with cyberattacks, budget constraints, and the need for solutions that are easy to implement and manage. For example, the Wild Rose School Division in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, has deployed the solution to protect its users from increasing incidents of ransomware and phishing attacks they see on their networks.
'Our district has a mobile-first strategy, driven by technology and learning strategies that are moving education beyond the classroom. Because of this, it?s critical that our network blocks malware and malicious content so students and teachers remain protected, no matter where they are,' said Jaymon Lefebvre, Director, IT Services for Wild Rose School Division. 'This requires effective security that dynamically scales to meet growing demands and policy changes. The Nominum-CIRA Cyber-Secure Schools initiative and cloud security solution they provide ensures that the entire Wild Rose community is safeguarded from today?s dangerous threats.'
'Less than half of zero-day malware is detected by traditional anti-virus solutions, and since most malware uses DNS for command and control, our combined solution is an ideal first line of defense that complements any company's security solution against emerging threats,' said Dave Chiswell, Vice President of Product Development for CIRA. 'Through our partnership with Nominum we are delivering a better, more secure internet to schools and businesses throughout Canada, giving students, teachers and administrative staff assurances that educational activities taking place online are safe.'
EDUCATION SECTOR HIT HARDEST BY RANSOMWARE, DRIVING THE NEED FOR BETTER CYBERSECURITY
US government statistics show that the rate of ransomware attacks tripled in 2016 over 2015. Specifically, research conducted by the security ratings firm BitSight showed that ransomware strikes the education sector more than any other, with one in 10 schools having been hit with malware on their networks.
'With cybercrime on the rise and schools facing budget and resource limitations, they are particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks that could cause long-term financial and operational damage,' said Arlen Frew, General Manager, Security Solutions for Nominum. 'In today's Digital Age, with more instruction and learning taking place online, it's critical that schools have a powerful security infrastructure to keep students, teachers and other users protected. CIRA and Nominum are delivering enterprise-class security in a cost-effective solution that requires little hands-on maintenance, a combination that is missing from the education security marketplace.'
N2 Secure Business: Protecting SMBs in an Easily Managed Cloud Solution
Nominum N2 Secure Business is a ground-breaking cloud-based security solution that enables managed services providers like CIRA, as well as ISPs and telecom operators, to deliver a white-label security-as-a-service (SECaaS) solution to schools, government agencies and small and medium-sized business (SMB) customers. N2 Secure Business is quickly creating new revenue streams for these providers, which are now able to offer enterprise-class security in a solution that is ideally suited for the education sector from a cost and ease of management perspective.
The solution utilizes Nominum's global DNS footprint and near real-time threat intelligence stream to discover and automatically block users from connecting to malicious domains and fills a critical market need for protection from ransomware, phishing and other malware in an easily managed solution that is suited to a small business budget. The technology also allows for simple management of content blocking, a requirement to ensure students in the K-12 environment are offered a safe and secure online experience.
N2-powered D-Zone DNS Firewall: The Ideal Hands-off Solution for K-12 and Higher Education Schools The D-Zone DNS Firewall locates the technology in Canadian Internet Exchange Points to deliver a very high-performance recursive service, keep query data in Canada, help move more traffic onto low-cost, or free education and research networks and provide higher security. The Cyber-Secure Schools program further benefits schools by providing licensing models that recognizes the different user in a school board environment. And finally, schools (and businesses) can create, modify and grant different levels of access to content for students based on age-appropriate safe browsing polices.
Copyright Associated Press, 2017