In the ongoing fight against cybercrime, it’s the IT department’s responsibility to make sure a company’s computer network is as secure as possible and to expunge any threats that may occur. Within the education system, as standardized testing becomes more widespread and the administration of exams depends more on computer systems, it’s even more important to know how to maintain a clean system.
Let’s take a look at how Deep Freeze can keep school computers safe from malware and hackers and see how it can simplify computer lab management:
Recent incidents point to a need for better protection
School systems have been coming under increased fire recently from cyberattacks. For instance, in March, students attempting to take the Florida Standards Assessments were unable to complete their exams due to an attack on the state’s systems. According to The Miami Herald, hackers used 29,000 different Internet addresses to orchestrate the attack. However, investigations conducted by the FBI have come up empty-handed, with the bureau befuddled as to the culprits’ identity.
In the days following the incident, the American Institutes of Research, the testing vendor for the school system, blocked all foreign traffic from its servers and enhanced firewall protection. After the attack took place, the beefed-up servers prevented another attack from taking place. But was it a little too late? The denial-of-service attack was still able to take place, and the school district’s computer systems were compromised so that students were unable to take their exams.
Cybersecurity woes continue as districts undergo audits
Some states have elected to undertake series of audits to make sure their strategies are on par with requirements. For instance, according to the Southeast Missourian, the Cape Girardeau School District is one of five Missouri schools that will undergo such an audit, as instigated by State Auditor Nicole Galloway.
More than 250 K-12 schools have been affected by cybersecurity incidents in the last 10 years, the Kansas City Star reported. These audits will gauge the district’s ability to detect and respond to a breach like the one experienced by the Florida schools.
“We’re trying to look at this as an opportunity to review what we’re doing,” Jim Welker, the superintendent of the Cape Girardeau School District, told the Southeast Missourian. “And certainly, if there are areas we need to make improvements, we’ll use this as an opportunity to do that. That’s our approach to it at this point.”
Deep Freeze: The solution you need
In order to be prepared for hacking incidents and ongoing cybersecurity audits, school systems need to make sure they are up-to-date with the latest in security technology. That’s where Deep Freeze comes in. This reboot to restore software is helpful in situations like the ones faced by schools that need to administer standardized tests on computer systems that may be susceptible to cyber crime.
For instance, when the Widefield 3 district of Colorado installed Deep Freeze on close to 2,000 computers in the wake of stringent regulations on how Common Core testing should be conducted, administrators were able to enhance the security on their testing environments. Since Deep Freeze can freeze specific systems and then restore them to a snapshot of their previous configurations, school officials are in a position to quickly and easily wipe the slate clean, so to speak, when an intrusion is suspected.
In this way, systems can be better prepared to handle DDoS attacks. If an intrusion occurs, it’s easy to clean the entire computer system with a simple touch of a button. Contact Faronics today for more information about how Deep Freeze can help school systems augment their computer security and prevent DDoS attacks on important exam-administering machines.
