Cyberoam Survey Reveals Most Schools and Teachers Suspect Students Can Bypass Content-Filtering Solutions
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More than 50% Said Current Security Solutions Hamper Teaching Effectiveness.
Woburn, MA, February 08, 2010 — Concerned by the number of students learning how to crack their own school firewalls by watching tutorials on YouTube, Cyberoam, a developer of IT security appliances, today issued the results of a survey taken by school administrators and teachers at the annual Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference recently held in Nashua, New Hampshire. The survey was co-sponsored by JTL Technical Services of Dover, NH, which provides IT security services to K-12 schools and small to mid-size businesses.
The conference, which was co-sponsored by the New Hampshire School Administrators Association and The New Hampshire Society for Technology in Education, drew approximately 2,000 teachers, school administrators and school IT-support personnel.
Jointly conducted by Cyberoam and JTL Technical Services, the survey uncovered four key trends related to school-system computer-network security:
* 66% of school administrators and teachers indicate that students know how to bypass their school system’s content-filtering solution, raising the problem of meeting CIPA compliance requirements.
* 56% sense that their current security solution hampers the teaching process.
* 89% consider the Internet is generally safe for students.
* 52% indicate that their school systems have adequate funding for security solutions.
“These results indicate that many school systems still have a ways to go in shoring up their content-filtering solution,” says Alex Quinonez, Vice President for Cyberoam. “Deploying the proper filter is critical because many students try to visit sites that present potentially harmful graphics, text, and malware.”
Quinonez adds that the survey offers additional insight that schools should consider closely: “If a security solution hampers the teaching process, it may be caused by unwarranted filter rules that limit Internet access to the lowest level. Internet access should not be the same for a 3rd grader as an 8th grade student or teacher. Identity-based role access allows all levels of appropriate Internet access while providing safe surfing. Although most web sites are safe for students, without anonymous proxy protection it can be fairly easy to reach a site that might prove very embarrassing or litigious for the school depending on who sees the site.”
Cyberoam offers unified threat management (UTM) security solutions that simplify perimeter security by providing all of the protection school systems need through one centrally managed appliance. This approach prevents students from accessing forbidden content while also minimizing the impact on applications that students legitimately use in the classroom.
“We directly address the concerns that administrators and teachers identified in the survey,” Quinonez says. “We deploy security solutions that prohibit students from bypassing content-filtering but without having a negative impact on how well the technology used by teachers performs in the classroom. This combination allows the Internet to be a productive, yet safe environment for students. And we offer our solutions cost-effectively to help school systems fit the technology within their budgets.”
For more details regarding Cyberoam unified threat management solutions, visit http://www.cyberoam.com/firewall.html.
About Cyberoam:
Cyberoam identity-based UTM appliances offer comprehensive protection against existing and emerging Internet threats, including viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, phishing, pharming and more. Cyberoam UTM delivers the complete range of security features such as stateful inspection firewall, VPN, gateway anti-virus, gateway anti-malware, gateway anti-spam, intrusion prevention system, content filtering in addition to bandwidth management and multiple link management over a single platform. The Cyberoam solution portfolio includes Cyberoam iView, an open-source logging and reporting solution, and Cyberoam Endpoint Data Protection suite to protect data and manage assets over endpoints in organizations. Cyberoam is certified with CheckMark UTM Level 5 Certification, ICSA Labs, and is a member of the Virtual Private Network Consortium. Cyberoam was positioned as a “Visionary” in the Magic Quadrant for SMB Multi-function Firewalls by Gartner. Cyberoam has also received SC Magazine’s 5 Star Rating continuously. Cyberoam has offices in Woburn, MA and India. For more information, please visit www.cyberoam.com.
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