Trumbull Public Schools was one of 373 nationwide school districts placed on the 2019 College Boards 9th annual AP® district honor roll for significant gains in student access and success. Reaching these goals shows that Trumbull Public Schools is successfully identifying motivated, academically prepared students who are ready for Advanced Placement.
The Trumbull PS Technology department is responsible for providing and maintaining approximately 9,000 units of hardware necessary for students to become engaged learners. “Maintaining a high level of service with a secure technology infrastructure is important to academic achievement in 21st century schools”, said Jeff Hackett, district technology manager. ‘The Trumbull PS Technology Department has been proactive in providing a variety of security enhancements, upgrades and device management tools to maintain a complex network with minimal outside assistance.”
The district selected Palo Alto Networks and Milford, CT. based, Digital BackOffice, to enhance digital security at the network perimeter and on the endpoint devices. “DBO provides us with a single point of contact for all network problems, changes and trouble-shooting”, said Mr. Hackett. “We have experienced how each new device or application can expose the district to cyberattacks and ransomware. HVAC and energy controls are now connected to the school network resulting in a significant savings to the district but also introducing potential security risks. The powerful detection capabilities inherent in the Palo Alto platform prevent attacks from compromising user and IOT devices or worse.”
The Digital BackOffice network operations center has visibility into all the network intersections, network data traffic and perimeter security. The DBO team provides the Trumbull district with experienced network engineering talent and is a trusted advisor that understands the unique K-12 education infrastructure needs.”
The Trumbull Public School district operates an enterprise wide area network connecting ten (10) buildings with a high-speed, gigabit fiber-optic network also managed by Digital BackOffice. Over 7,300 users access educational, business office applications and the internet from a variety of endpoint devices, including many wireless users on personal computers.
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.
Read this article and more in the February 2020 issue of the CCM Town & City magazine
https://www.ccm-ct.org/ccm-magazine
