New Canaan Public Schools has selected Palo Alto Networks and Milford, CT. based, Digital BackOffice, to enhance cybersecurity with a next generation firewall. New Canaan School Public Schools are a top-rated school district with 4,161 students in grades PK, K-12 and a student-teacher ratio of 12 to 1. According to state test scores, 86% of students are at least proficient in math and 88% in reading. Forbes Magazine rated New Canaan Public Schools – #2 District in the Nation “Best School Districts for your Housing Buck”.
The New Canaan PS Technology department is responsible for providing and maintaining approximately 8,000 technology devices for 5,500 end users. “In addition, top priorities include staff cyber security training, ongoing staff professional learning in areas of networking and cybersecurity, and continual maintenance of our networking components” said Ian McHugh, Manager, End User Services.
“Maintaining a high level of service and a secure technology infrastructure is important to academic achievement in 21st century schools”, said Mr. McHugh. ‘The New Canaan PS Technology Department recognized the need to replace a legacy firewall, included funding in the 2020-2021 budget and evaluated several vendors.
“DBO provides us with a single point of contact for all network problems, changes and trouble-shooting”, said Mr. McHugh. The powerful detection capabilities inherent in the Palo Alto platform prevent attacks from compromising users and data.”
The DBO team provides the New Canaan district with experienced network engineering talent and is a trusted advisor that understands the unique K-12 education infrastructure needs.”
Managed security service providers, like Digital BackOffice, offer a single point of contact, a local help desk, 24×7 monitoring and expertise in securing the network from cyber-attacks, malware, hacking and ransomware. User education is important, but prevention and frequent policy adjustments are the key to a robust cyber-security strategy. Effective prevention requires next generation tools, experience, training, process controls and a security partner prepared to take responsibility for actively managing network security.
Ian McHugh, Manager End User Services, New Canaan Public Schools, 203-594-4620 Email: ian.mchugh@ncps-k12.org
