For educational establishments like Bedford Modern School, digital security is paramount. We are experiencing a time when so much learning is done online. With teachers and students often using their own devices, achieving this has never been harder. To tackle this challenge, the School turned to Switchshop, who advised on a suite of Fortinet solutions.
Bedford Modern School is an HMC Independent Day School for boys and girls aged 7-18. Combining a 250-year-old tradition with a modern outlook, it has built a community where students can flourish as individuals. An outstanding school aiming to ensure that education remains relevant, it recognises the era of rapid change that it faces.
Safeguarding confidential educational material and information has always been crucial for schools like Bedford Modern, but as students and teachers adjust to remote learning in a post-pandemic landscape it has become even more important.
Students are now encouraged to bring their own devices to the school premises or log in remotely from home. Sensitive information and personal data are being shared at a rate never before seen, and incomprehensible even a few years ago.
Educational institutions are entrusted to safeguard their students’ information, and a weak cybersecurity infrastructure can easily put this at risk.
A need for a secure and safe system for an evolving educational landscape
Security is paramount to the school, and it knows the importance of protecting the information of students, teachers, and partners.
To meet the needs of remote and hybrid learning—triggered by the pandemic—laptops were provided to all teaching staff. Microsoft Teams and SharePoint are used, and the school created a portal where students log in and access information. In an ideal world, they would have 1:1 student devices and audio/visual set up for all classrooms. However, they needed to have enough access points to enable this deployment whilst maintaining a secure, reliable, and safe environment. This goes for both the students and staff.
A partner the school could trust
A school’s IT infrastructure is vital to operations. Everything from entry to canteen cards, and smartboards to hybrid delivery lessons is now online. This meant the school needed a solid and trusted security platform to build its IT infrastructure.
The solution had to be cost-effective and offer a fully feature-rich set of security tools using just one appliance. It also needed to satisfy safeguarding requirements, with the ability for user web reporting. And, it needed to support a number of virtual firewalls. These would cater to their Head Office function and a separate IT programming network.
The school wanted a firewall solution that worked as one system, offering multiple security features and easy control. Furthermore, they also wanted this to integrate with other security products. It was key that a variety of virtual firewalls were included. In addition, they required compliance with Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) and Prevent legislation and Internet Watch Foundation.
So, the school began extensive research for providers. Finding a partner who could look after all the moving parts and had the right skillsets to deliver.
Switchshop and Fortinet
Switchshop worked closely with Bedford Modern School to develop a system that provided security and empowered the education of its students. Its goal was to have a best-in-class holistic security system. One that gave it confidence in its ability to safeguard sensitive information and use cloud platforms to best advantage. In addition, it wanted to upgrade data storage practices, and have the highest quality IT infrastructure.
With extensive experience in the public sector and education, Switchshop was able to understand what was required from the school. Switchshop always invests time and effort, to get to know the establishment they are working with. Similarly here, they made sure they could design the right solution, at the right budget. The school was already employing Fortinet solutions to reliably meet other needs. Thanks to the success of their existing relationship, Fortinet was the obvious choice.
Switchshop recommended Fortinet solutions to deliver broad protection and visibility to every network segment, device, and appliance within the school, with ongoing support via a single platform. Providing seamless security, this approach allows the school’s IT team to monitor, detect, and remediate different attack vendors and entry points, ensuring all bases are covered. This freed up the school’s IT team to focus on their everyday tasks, removing worry about ever-changing threats.
FortiGate 500E has transformed the security network by providing a secure, resilient, and fast-performing environment. One from which the IT team can deliver a number of other security components. It was essential that all the systems were robustly protected against ransomware. Using FortiClient with malware sandboxing and FortiWeb, we enabled this to happen.
Teachers at Bedford were adjusting from using wired technology to wireless and remote, an added complexity. Switchshop recommended the rollout of FortiAuthenticator to enable a seamless experience. The complete effective security solution offered a number of features: a secure VPN access. This can offer two-factor authentication (2FA) and web filtering that is compliant with Prevent/KCSIE legislation; Application Control; SSL Deep packet Inspection; Comprehensive and flexible Safeguarding and web usage User Reports; and wireless user authentication using Microsoft Office 365 Login credentials. Plus, Switchshop was able to deliver several virtual Fortinet FortiGate 500Es, a specific requirement for the school.
“The deployment of the FortiGate Next-generation firewall (NGFW) from Switchshop has transformed our school’s IT security and is enabling us to work towards having a fully 1:1 operating system and IT infrastructure for the future.”- Angelo Felice, ICT Services and Innovations Manager at Bedford Modern School
Angelo Felice ICT Services and Innovations Manager at Bedford Modern says “We know that cybersecurity goes far beyond just having strong passwords and regular security awareness training. We are delighted with the systems and structure that Switchshop has put in place through Fortinet solutions, and are now confident in keeping our staff, students, and parents as digitally safe as possible as we navigate new challenges in the educational landscape. It’s a secure, easy to implement all-in-one solution that is cost-effective – perfect for us.”
Security that excels for a future-proofed school
Bedford Modern School now has excellent firewalling with client endpoint protection for all devices, laptops, Chromebooks, and tablets. This is thanks to FortiClient, an advanced endpoint protection solution with a built-in VPN client. It delivers integrated endpoint and network security. The school now benefits from reports on the status of a device, flagging of any suspicious files, and malware protection. The system is simple to use, safe, and secure.
Upgrading systems for all students
Switchshop enabled Bedford Modern School to develop a site-wide IT security architecture that is comprehensive and easy to manage. The solution is now an integral part of the school’s infrastructure as they look into the provision of 1:1 devices for the students. The Fortinet approach provided by Switchshop will help them to deliver and achieve this – safely and securely.
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