Last month, ACSI sponsored and attended the Zone Professional Development event to learn about the latest security vendor products and updates. Attendees sat in on two PD sessions—one with Fortinet and the other with Aruba/HPE—where current IT security issues for K-12 schools were discussed and examined. Potential solutions were identified, giving attendees much food for thought. This event is a must for IT administrators in school divisions who are wanting to learn more, improve, and innovate.
Fortinet Product Updates
The Fortinet product updates focused mainly on what’s new with the FortiOS 5.6, a product that allows you to control all the security and networking capabilities in your Fortinet Security Fabric. This product improves your protection and increases your visibility while reducing operating expenses. The FortiOS 5.6 also enhances protection from IoT to the Cloud.
There are a ton of things that have been improved with this product. It has seen Security Fabric enhancements, an improved dashboard, VXLAN support, adding internet services to firewall policies, and transparent web proxies among others. The FortiOS 5.6 is also now equipped with a Security Fabric Audit that recommends and automates actions and is a single pane of glass to help manage your network better. These upgrades are designed to better secure your network and make the product more user-friendly.
Related: Establish a Full Security Fabric to Replace Ineffective Security Measures
IT Security Challenges for K-12 Schools
With the product updates behind us, we moved on to discussing some IT security challenges that K-12 schools are currently facing. This discussion revolved mainly around the use of Chromebooks in schools and what that means for IT administrators.
One of the challenges school districts are facing with these convenient and cost-effective devices is the ability to enforce user-based content and security policies throughout a school district. User-based detailed logging while the devices are both on and off-net is also an issue. Attendees were able to voice their problems with these devices and connect with others experiencing the same issues.
To help combat these challenges, ACSI demonstrated the abilities of a Fortinet solution that utilizes the functionality of the FortiAuthenticator. This solution helps enforce policies created by schools and gives IT administrators much more detailed visibility than reports provided by the Google admin console. With this solution, IT Chromebooks become significantly more secure for students.
The Zone 2, 3 & 4 Professional Development Day was a great success. Thank you to everyone who made this event possible and attended. It is an excellent opportunity to connect with fellow IT administrators and security vendors, and learn about what’s new on the market. We hope to see you there next time!
