Education networks are a student data hub – everything from school records, social security numbers, to health records is available. Unfortunately, this data is a natural target for threat actors seeking to land and expand prized PII for their own goals. To ensure data protection, Education IT and security operation teams need to guard against ransomware and other threats. Additionally, they are dealing with the proliferation of devices and operating systems, and let’s face it, a small but mighty team of dedicated IT professionals are working tirelessly to future-proof school endpoints.

Cisco’s Endpoint Security solution defends school networks by blocking attacks at the endpoint before data is compromised, while also helping you respond to threats quickly and thoroughly. Protecting school-issued devices that students and staff use to access resources is critical. One of a school’s essential responsibilities is to keep its students and staff safe, or they run the risk of missing out on critical grant funding and facing pressure from students, parents, and other important partners. Plus, with the increasing integration of devices into day-to-day student activities, securing school devices is a crucial way to keep the school population safe.

Threat actors are relentlessly motivated and they will do anything to gain access to educators’ and students’ personally identifiable information stored in school district servers. According to the Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) in August and September, 57% of ransomware incidents involved K-12 schools, compared to 28% of all reported ransomware incidents from January through July. Ransomware attacks are increasing in frequency, and they are unlikely to slow down any time soon.

Save time. Save money. Free up your stretched IT team.

Cisco Secure Endpoint deploys a lightweight agent that sits on your school’s endpoints. The anti-malware agent is an ideal solution to safeguard devices in school environments. With the SecureX platform built-in, we can deliver a unified view, simplified incident management, and automated playbooks—making our extended detection and response (XDR) the broadest in the industry.

Automated Tasks: Education may not have a dedicated IT team with security specialization. Automated actions in-product and SecureX orchestration workflows can help automate tasks for a stretched team.

Single Workflow: SecureX can help save time and money. It provides a single workflow and unified visualization for comprehensive security to protect students and staff, leveraging Secure Endpoint’s enhanced behavioral analysis and anomaly detection, continually monitoring staff and student devices.

Endpoint Visibility: Cisco Secure Endpoint gives unparalleled visibility and control through advanced capabilities. For example, Orbital Advanced Search provides hundreds of pre-canned queries, allowing IT staff to quickly run complex queries on any or all endpoints. Malware Analytics, formerly Threat Grid, provides a global view of malware attacks, campaigns, and their distribution. It analyzes millions of samples monthly and distills terabytes of malware analysis into rich, actionable intelligence.

Stop malware threats. Protect students. Gain immediate compliance.

Secure Endpoint provides built-in features and policy settings that help schools comply with local regulations with ease. State, local, tribal, and territorial educational institutions are prime targets for malware and ransomware. Gain immediate compliance with:

Next-generation endpoint protection from Cisco Secure Endpoint. Block threats using powerful machine-learning-based behavioral monitoring engines to protect against fileless malware and ransomware unbeknown to students.

Secure Endpoint host isolation can prevent threats from spreading throughout your school network with one-click isolation of an infected endpoint, so malware does not reinfect district and school networks.

It is easy for students to mistake sites or pop-ups as harmless, and teachers are often ill-equipped to assess the security measures to ensure students are not risking their data and privacy. For example, an opportunistic threat like Zeus, which has the power to target Microsoft Windows operating system, infect the targeted machine, and send stolen information to command-and-control servers. Shlayer is another infamous Trojan for macOS malware that poses as a fake Adobe Flash updater that any student could mistake for a random alert to update their school-issued device.

If a school bus breaks down, a textbook is out of date, or the school bell does not ring, the class still happens, but the next endpoint attack could very well leave schools out of session.

Related Resources

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Schools may contact grantquestions@cisco.com to get more information about public funding options available within your state.

Cisco Secure Architecture for K 12 Schools

Learn how Cisco Secure architecture combines advanced security with modern networking, making it simple, scalable, and manageable.

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