Network Availability and Security Are The Cornerstone For
Educating Future Generations
The dichotomy of maintaining network security while also preserving communication and the free exchange of information presents educational institutions with a unique set of obstacles. Meanwhile, challenges such as IT talent shortages and insufficient funding for cybersecurity projects have educational institutions searching for solutions to secure their environments in the face of new risks.
Applications are the textbooks of the 21st century, and educational institutions require applications and networks to provide content, educate students and reduce operational costs. The growth in online services and web-based content introduces new security challenges to districts and universities that must ensure 24×7 access to online services and protect student records.
According to Radware’s annual Global Application and Network Security Report, education security professionals must overcome three primary obstacles: application and network availability, protecting sensitive data and lack of expertise and resources to manage cybersecurity protection.
Schools and universities depend on their websites and online services. Networks and applications must be available 24×7 to allow students and faculty access to resources, especially during admissions, exams and other time sensitive periods. Education technical administrators are most concerned about the availability of applications and network-hosted services.
Schools and universities process and store large volumes of personal information. Based on a recent study by the Consortium for School Networking of U.S school districts, student-data privacy and security has become a critical priority and over half of school districts have formal password and security policies that are widely followed.
Transitioning applications and data to the public cloud only exacerbates data security because educational institutions have less control and visibility to manage and secure these applications in cloud environments.
Although keeping websites, data and the network secure is critical, it is becoming increasingly difficult given the cybersecurity skills shortage and the increasing array of attack vectors.
For larger school districts, this presents various resource problems, but for smaller school systems with little to no IT staff, these resource shortfalls can be catastrophic, according to the Consortium for School Networking.
Radware’s cybersecurity solutions ensure that educational institutions are resilient to cyberattacks via hybrid protection that combines on-premise protection with cloud-based scrubbing centers and includes SSL attack mitigation for keyless, low latency defense against encrypted attacks.
In addition, based on an organization’s protection and deployment requirements, Radware provides Cloud DDoS protection. Radware’s application delivery solutions allow education institutions to automate and scale application security and management.
Radware’s WAF solutions ensure security of APIs and mission-critical web applications accessed daily by both student and faculty. Our web application security solutions leverage machine-learning algorithms to provide comprehensive protection against the OWASP Top 10.
Radware’s WAF integrates with the hybrid attack mitigation solution and Radware’s Bot Manager, which provides precise bot mitigation and management. Radware’s Cloud Workload Protection Service provides security and control over assets in multiple public cloud environments by identifying exposed assets and removing excessive permissions.
To assist with resources and expertise, Radware’s DDoS and application attack mitigation solutions use machine learning, real-time signature creation and auto-policy generation to shorten time to mitigation by automatically mitigating attacks.
Radware’s expert Emergency Response Team compliments the in-house cybersecurity expertise of any organization by providing best practices and full management of Radware’s on-premise and cloud DDoS solutions. The ERT is available 24×7 for proactive security support for customers facing a broad array of application- and network-layer attacks.
