Article:
The Internet is a wonderful resource for schools and colleges,
but it brings new problems to worry about. Stories about
viruses, hackers and porn websites have become increasingly
frequent in newspapers and on TV. For those in the education
world, it can be difficult to separate the hype from the true
risks, and to make decisions about how to tackle this problem.
The reality is somewhere between the extremes of the
doom-mongers and those who don't see a problem: yes, Internet
security threats can cause major problems and need to be taken
seriously, but with some basic planning and a reasonable level
of investment, they can be kept firmly under control.
Educational establishments today often have IT demands that are
greater than many private companies, and schools and colleges
may have 200 or more PCs networked together. With this level of
IT systems, it's essential that there is the right level of
Internet security in place to protect from hazards such as
viruses, "spam" and inappropriate website content. However,
schools and colleges have additional concerns to the private
industry:
- A duty of care to protect pupils from offensive material. -
Students' often reckless attitude towards security. - Lack of
time for the person in charge of IT - particularly if they are a
teacher with an already heavy workload. - Lack of financial
resources.
Considering all this, it's a difficult job to keep Internet
security protection up to a sufficiently high standard. The most
common threats that need to be countered are:
- Viruses: these are small computer programs that can be
inadvertently transferred by email from other Internet
communications, like file sharing, or on floppy disks or CDs.
They may be harmless, or can cause serious damage like erasing
files or sending out malicious emails from the infected machine.
- Spam: this is a general term for junk or unsolicited email.
The latest figures estimate that up to 90% of all email is spam
- as well as the time it wastes for people to read and delete
it, it uses up IT resources, and can be unpleasant.
- Intrusions and hackers: computers outside the school's network
can try and 'hack' into the network if there is no protection.
This can give them access to files on the school's PCs,
potentially including confidential and sensitive information.
- Inappropriate website content: Internet users at the school or
college could be looking at pornographic or other unsuitable
material on websites - this is obviously particularly important
to control for an educational establishment.
So, how to block these threats? Many different solutions are
available on the market, including hardware, software, and
managed services. At a basic level, most educational
establishments have some form of firewall to block unauthorised
Internet access, and anti-virus software.
Unfortunately, configuring them is far from easy. Once
configured, they need to be updated every day to protect against
new threats: a task that is time consuming, boring, and often
ignored. The resulting lapses in security are frequently only
discovered after a problem occurs.
Offensive material on the Internet can be filtered out, and
various software or hardware tools are available to block spam
emails. Intrusion detection and prevention is also an essential
to block against attacks since firewalls in themselves cannot
block many intrusion attempts without also blocking legitimate
traffic), and further security measures are required if schools
want to enable staff to work remotely.
Another issue to consider is how to handle teachers and students
taking laptops home and then bringing them back onto the school
network - possibly with a virus infection they've picked up away
from the school. Here, the best approach is to put in place
strict controls over which machines are allowed to be connected,
and to ensure that all staff machines (and ideally those of
pupils as well) have the latest anti-virus software installed,
and that it is updated regularly. In practice, it's almost
impossible to keep this level of control, and some level of
protection is needed for the network and at the gateway from the
school to the Internet.
While the update for Microsoft's Windows XP operating system
(called Service Pack 2) has made positive strides to improve
security, it is no substitute for the security protections
described above. Furthermore, many schools will still have PCs
running older versions of Windows (2000, ME or 98), which don't
offer the same safeguards as the latest Windows XP version.
All of these security solutions require time-consuming
monitoring and configuring, an investment in time to understand
the systems, and in some cases further hardware to run them
effectively on. Not something that your average IT manager, let
alone teacher, has time for. In fact, the most costly part of
Internet security is the IT expertise and time to configure,
update and maintain the systems and software.
Virus writers are also getting smarter at exploiting the human
weaknesses of ICT managers. It's no coincidence that several
recent major viruses have been released on Friday evenings,
giving them the best chance of causing havoc with unprotected
systems over the weekend before the harassed ICT staff can
update their anti-virus software.
To solve these issues, it's worth considering outsourcing
Internet security. This provides fast, expert response to
security threats, and updates against new dangers can be
automatically provided. Costs are known up front, and
outsourcing allows IT staff or teachers to concentrate on their
core tasks - and to take holidays and weekends without the risk
of leaving the school vulnerable!
In conclusion, Internet security is a threat that educational
establishments must take seriously, and must allocate sufficient
resources to deal with. There are different threats that must
all be blocked to ensure the establishment is complying with its
legal and moral duties to protect staff and students.
However, by putting in place the right combination of hardware
and software tools, or by investing in an outsourced managed
service or all-in-one security appliance, schools and colleges
can tackle the security threat, and ensure their teachers and
pupils can safely take advantage of the many benefits the
Internet brings to education.
About the author:
Simon Heron, Managing Director at Network Box UK (
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