With the existing web security at end-of-life, it was clear the RRS needed to deploy a new solution to protect its large school community of 1,500 users including pupils and staff. This meant the school needed an enterprise-class threat detection system to protect its community as they browsed the web and accessed applications in the cloud.
“It is essential that all our staff and pupils have secure access to the web as a lot of our information is hosted in Microsoft 365 and other third-party apps. We need to make sure that when anyone accesses a website it’s not going to be full of adverts which could be subjected to a malware attack. Most importantly, our pupils must be safe in the sites they are able to access. We have a duty of care and Censornet helps us with our due diligence.” said Mark Hayden, IT Manager.
RRS (Royal Russell School) is “different by design”- a coeducational independent day and boarding school in the UK that values the things that make each pupil distinctively brilliant. With 1,100 pupils aged three to 18 under its tutelage and 110-acres of facilities, this vibrant and ambitious community requires the highest levels of security to ensure proper safeguarding, and to protect its own systems from malicious attack.
After an extended trial RRS purchased Censornet’s Web Security and Cloud Application Security (CASB) as their first line of defence. However, RRS soon realised that it needed to protect its users across not just web, but its wider ecosystem. According to the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, 41 percent of primary and 70 percent of secondary schools identified a breach or an attack in the last 12 months. They also needed to protect the number one attack surface: email, and effective email filtering was vital.
By working with Censornet, the school was able to combine attack intelligence across their email, web and cloud application security (CASB) solutions, to stop cross-channel attacks. This enabled RRS to protect against web-borne malware and offensive and inappropriate content. The school is now also able to effectively manage time spent on websites, as well as review user interactions across cloud applications. It has complete visibility of any attack, at every stage, across any device or application. RRS also needed rule-based granularity to make sure access was personalised to each pupil and teacher. The school provides different permission levels to the junior school, the senior school, and the boarding community who need access and support at different times of day.
User experience is a key reason why RRS chose Censornet over other solutions. “The main dashboard gives you a very clear view of what’s happening in email, web and cloud security,” Mark explains. “It’s like a pane of glass: you can see everything from emails coming in, to blocked websites. We have great visibility of the three distinct but complementary products. I then have the flexibility to drill down into each of those modules to investigate particular groups of users.”
For more information about the project at RRS please see details here
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